Super Vasuki, India’s heaviest freight train with 295 wagons, carries 27,000 tonnes of coal in trial run

As part of the 75th Independence Day celebrations, the Indian Railways conducted a test run of the Super Vasuki, touted to be India’s longest and heaviest freight train, with 295 loaded wagons and 6 engines.

The test run of the 3.5-km-long freight train carrying more than 27,000 tonnes of coal was conducted by South East Central Railway between Korba in Chhattisgarh and Rajnandgaon near Nagpur on August 15.

The train left Korba at 1:50 pm and took 11.20 hours to cover a distance of 267 km.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared a video on Twitter of the Super Vasuki, which takes about four minutes to cross a station.

 

The Indian Railways said it was the longest and heaviest freight train ever run by the national transporter, PTI reported.

The Super Vasuki is India’s longest-loaded train stretching across 3.5 km. The freight train runs with six locos and 295 wagons.

In its trial run, the Super Vasuki carried a total trailing load of about 27,000 tonnes of coal, which is enough to fire 3000 MW of power plant for one full day. This is the highest fuel transportation ever carried by the Indian Railways in a single train. The existing railway rakes can carry 90 cars with 100 tonnes in each or about 9,000 tonnes of coal in one journey.

The Super Vasuki is operated by the South East Central Railway (SECR) zone of the Indian Railways. The SECR ran the record long-haul freight trains Vasuki and Trishul last year and the 2.8 km long SheshNaag train before that. The Super Vasuki was set up by amalgamating five rakes of goods trains as one unit.

The railways plan to use the Super Vasuki or longer freight trains more frequently to transport coal to ensure there are no fuel shortages at power stations in peak demand season. Coal, which is one of the key freight commodities transported by the railways, suffered shortages earlier this year, pushing the country into a severe power crisis.

The Indian Railways, which has been testing longer freight trains to carry higher loads over greater distances, expects to help save transportation time and facilitate decongestion of the rail network by running multiple rakes.