Railways’ arm Rites exports modern passenger coaches to Bangladesh

Rites Ltd, a public sector undertaking under the ministry of railways, has supplied 60 broad gauge passenger coaches (LHB type) to Bangladesh Railway (BR) against a contract agreement of 120 coaches.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flagged off an intercity train of Bangladesh Railway with these coaches at Dhaka today.

At present, two trains, comprising of 12 coaches each - 2 AC chair cars, 2 first AC sleeper cars, 6 non-AC chair cars and 2 power cars, are being deployed to operate three pairs of inter-city trains between Dhaka and Rajshahi. These modern stainless steel coaches manufactured by Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, are equipped with Fiat bogies capable of running at maximum speed of 160 kmph.

Rites had earlier supplied 26 broad gauge diesel electric locomotives (3100 HP) manufactured by Diesel Locomotive Works , Varanasi, which are successfully running broad gauge trains of Bangladesh Railway.

Rajeev Mehrotra, chairman and managing director, said Rites is making all efforts to augment export of rolling stock manufactured at Indian Railways production units. Response from South Asian markets is very encouraging, he added.