Team News Riveting
Raipur, September 20
In line with the Govt of India’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) drive, the Rail & Structural Mill of SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant has been rolling out thick web asymmetric (TWA) rails, a special grade of rails for Indian Railways. Utilised in cross-over points along railway tracks, this grade of rails has so far been imported. None of the domestic steel companies produce it commercially. Globally too, only a few of top steel producers including Corus, UK and a few in Austria and France produce it.
As many as 429 pairs of end-forged thick web asymmetric (TWA) rails weighing about 815 Tonnes loaded onto a rake with 14 wagons was flagged off from Rail & Strl. Mill by Director In-charge, Bhilai Steel Plant, Anirban Dasgupta today on 20th Sept 2021, in presence of Executive Director MM), Rakesh, ED (P&A) S K Dubey, ED (Works) Anjani Kumar and senior officers of the Plant and members of Rail & Strl Mill collective and its associated departments. This is the biggest lot of TWA rails despatched directly by SAIL-BSP to Indian Railways. So far, meagre lots had been supplied to switch manufacturers through road dispatches.
Used for manufacturing of switch points along the tracks of Indian Railways, this product enables trains to change tracks at high speed. Deployment of these advanced ‘switch point rails’ in its network, has helped Railways’ to modernize its track for coping with the demand.
The Plant had first undertaken trial rolling of thick web asymmetric rails in the year 2006. Based on a commitment by SAIL to the Railway Board, a new End Forging Plant was later installed in Rail &Strl. Mill at a cost of Rs48 crore in 2009, by a consortium comprising Hydraulico, Denmark and B K Engineering, Bhilai.
The first lot of end-forged thick web asymmetric rails was dispatched by road to Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) at the Tamluk division in West Bengal in July 2013. Between 2013-14 and 2017-18, about 1099 Tons of end forged TWA rails were dispatched. After a gap of almost 4 years, rolling of TWA rails was again taken up in May 2020. The end-forged TWA rails flagged off today has been rolled in fiscal year 2020-21 and also in current fiscal year 2021-22. With this, SAIL-Bhilai has so far supplied around 1914 Tonnes of end forged TWA grade of rails.
SAIL-BSP has been meeting the entire requirement of Indian Railways for rails for over six decades now, rolling out the desired volume and quality of rails to meet the changing requirements and progressively improving standards to roll out world class rails as per stringent specifications of the Indian Railways. It is worth mentioning that SAIL-BSP produces cleanest rail steel in world with Hydrogen content below 1.6 ppm (parts per million).
SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant is presently rolling out a new R260 grade of rails with 60E1 profile for Indian Railways from both Rail & Strl. Mill and Universal Rail Mill. This new grade of rails is more suitable for higher speed and higher axle load. The specifications given by Indian Railways for this new grade of rails are even more stringent than the specifications of rails used in European countries.
Among other senior officers present today during the flagging off of end forged TWA rails were SN Abidi, CGM I/c Services, Arvind Kumar, CGM I/c M & U, Dr A K Panda, CGM I/c Finance, MM Gadre, CGM (RSM, RTS, RPDB & Plate Mill), S K Katariya, CGM (Mech), A K Tiwari, CGM (Traffic), G P Ojha, CGM (PPC), PK Sarkar, CGM (Electrical), Anish Sengupta, CGM (URM), Ajay Bedi, CGM (MM & WRM), Asit Saha, CGM (I & A).
