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Delhi Metro runs on best quality rails

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

"Only the top quality rails used for the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis are used in the Delhi Metro depots" DMRC trusts only the imported Harden Rails of Austrian and French make

NEW DELHI: How is it that the much talked about Shinkansen bullet train of Japan despite running on the narrower standard gauge is able to clock over 300 km per hour while our own desi trains struggle to touch even 150 km per hour on the wider broad gauge tracks? The answer, according to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, has much to do with the quality of rails and their alignment and that is precisely why only the supposedly "best'' rails used for the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis are used in the depots of Delhi Metro.

Imports

In Delhi Metro, the 90 UTS rails that are used for running the Rajdhanis only find pride of place in the depots. For all its other tracks, DMRC trusts only the imported Harden Rails of Austrian and French make.

While those in the Railways find it hard to understand why DMRC imports its rails when the Bhilai Steel Plant which supplies close to 7 lakh tonnes of tracks to the Indian Railways for laying of about 2,000 km of new lines each year and replacing around 5,000 km of tracks annually is in a position to supply to Delhi Metro also, DMRC officials insist they want only the best as the backbone of any railway system is the rail and rolling stock.

Stating that when there is a monopoly of a company in the manufacturing process there is no incentive to improve, DMRC Projects and Planning Director C.B.K. Rao says that even after the Khanna rail tragedy "rail fraction has not stopped''. Incidentally, that tragedy -- which claimed over 200 lives in Punjab -- was blamed to a large extent on crumbling of rail tracks due to high hydrogen content.

European countries

In the Harden Rail, according to Mr. Rao, the hydrogen content is 1.5 parts per million (ppm) in the finished rail and not liquid steel. As such the rails are of high quality. But in Indian rails, the content is measured in liquid form and even though in liquid the hydrogen level would be less than 2 ppm, in finished steel it is more than that due to the cooling process.

Temperatures

Since the imported rails used by Delhi Metro are also used in European countries in temperatures of even minus 20 to minus 30 degrees Celsius, at which levels metals become more brittle, their use in India with much higher temperatures becomes all the more assured.

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