The Indian Railways & Maruti Suzuki have flagged off new high-capacity railway wagons (technically called BCACBM) from Gurgaon railway station.

Named ‘Flexi deck auto-wagon rake’, it brings the advantages of higher capacity, flexibility & faster speed to the rail transportation of cars. 

The ‘Flexi deck' rake has 20% additional capacity (318 cars) as compared to the current twin-decker coaches (265 cars). The new rake, with its height adjustable middle-deck, is highly flexible and can transport vehicles of multiple dimensions. From concept to reality, the project took 36 months. 

The new rake can move at speed of upto 95 kph as compared to 65 kph of the existing rakes. To put things in perspective, the train can now travel between Gurgaon and Bangalore in around 5 days, as compared to 7 days by road transportation. 

The 1st Flexi deck consisting of 27 wagons chugged off to Nidavanda, Bangalore from Gurgaon carrying a mixed load of Maruti cars including Swift, Dzire, Alto, Wagon R and Omni. 

Maruti Suzuki has initially procured three such rakes of 27 wagons each. These rakes will be primarily deployed in the high-volume West and South India destinations. In the long term, the company will dispatch cars through railways to several destinations like Nagpur, Siliguri, Mumbai, Pune, Mundra, Kolkata etc. 

To streamline operations, Maruti will develop infrastructure at the off-loading destinations. The company has developed a railway station at Nidavanda, near Bangalore. The Nidavanda station has a capacity to handle nearly 300 vehicles presently. As Maruti has big volumes for South India destinations, Bangalore will be used as a feeder point for the dealer network.

Maruti has been using rail transportation for over two decades. In 2008, the company joined hands with Indian railways and developed double-deck container trains to enhance load carrying capacity. These continue to be used by Maruti mainly for export vehicles from its manufacturing plants in Haryana to the Mundra port. Dispatch through railways increased from 2% in 2007-08 to over 5% in 2012-13. With the commissioning of the Flexi Deck rakes, rail transportation would substantially increase in the future.

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