ICF becomes world’s largest rail coach manufacturer

Integral Coach Factory (ICF), the rail coach manufacturing factory at Chennai, which became famous for manufacturing Train 18, has become the single largest rail coach manufacturer in the world surpassing top Chinese manufacturers.

ICF is one of three coach manufacturing facilities of Indian Railways with the other two being Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli. The manufacturing facility of Indian Railways in Chennai manufactured 2,919 coaches from April 2018 to February 2019 against 2,600 coaches manufactured by top Chinese manufacturers. ICF has set a target to manufacture 3,200 coaches in this financial year 2019. In February ICF manufactured 301 coaches and it will easily reach the target of 3,200 by the end of this financial year. The number of coaches manufactured this year is 40 percent higher than those manufactured previous year in the same time period, which helped in ICF surpassing top Chinese manufacturers.

“With the sheer dedication and hard work of all the engineers and the entire team of Integral Coach Factory at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, we have now surpassed top Chinese manufacturers to become the largest rail coach maker in the world,” tweeted Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.

The ultra-modern ‘Train 18’ is engine less, with self-propelled coaches like metro was indigenously made at Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai. The train is equipped with digital platforms, onboard Wi-Fi services and high-end interiors.  The manufacturing of this state-of-the-art train in India, at half the import cost and in less than two years, is a great achievement for railways and ‘Make in India’. “It is a step towards manufacturing bullet trains at ICF,” said an employee. “It will be a game-changer for the Railways,” said a senior ICF official.

Many countries around the globe have shown interest in the purchase of Train 18 coaches. India is all set to enter in 200 billion dollar global market for coaches and wagons with the ultra-modern Train 18 which was manufactured at ICF. The manufacturing of semi high-speed train at less than half of global prices is the latest example of the success of PM Modi’s initiative. Earlier, Alstom SA, a French multinational operating in rail transport exported 22 metro train sets for Sydney metro. The six-car train sets were fully designed and manufactured in India at the company’s plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. “This is a very important milestone for us because the Sydney Metro project was the first international project fully delivered from India,” said Ling Fang, SVP, Alstom South Asia. 

Modern Coach Factory (MCF), Raebareli will also export customized 1st AC, 2nd AC and other coaches in the global market. This is the first time in India that MCF will export 90 coaches from Indian Railways’ manufacturing facility at Raebareli to the African nation, Mozambique. 

MCF increased production exponentially to 368 coaches in first 4 months of 2018-19, which is almost equal to the sum total of coaches manufactured in first 4 months of last 4 years (i.e. in 16 months) and approximately double the number of coaches manufactured in the same period of last year. MCF uses modern Robotics technology to manufacture coaches. The Modi government sanctioned 480 crore rupees in the 2018-2019 budget to further modernize the rail coach factory at Raebareli and increase its production capacity from 1,000 to 3,000 per year. 

The world has surely taken notice of the conducive investment environment in India. World’s biggest tech giants and entrepreneurs have already made their expansion plans in India. Investors around the world have shown immense confidence in India which will be helpful in meeting the needs of the Indian economy and hence, employment generation in India will see the boost. The onus of success largely goes to initiatives like the Make in India, Digital India and Skill India by the NDA government.