Increase in freight loading on SR

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 2 (UNI) The Southern Railway has recorded originating loading of approximately 3.2 million tonnes in freight traffic during the month of July, which was 32 per cent higher than the previous year.

All divisions of the Railway had shown an increase in loading, an SR release here said.

Regarding Petroleum products, Palakkad Division had registered the highest ever loading of limestone from Mangalore Port. Chennai division had recorded a 23 per cent increase in the loading of coal from Chennai and Ennore Ports and Madurai division has done 80 per cent improvement in incremental loading over last year.

The loading performance of Southern Railway from April to July this year had been 19 per cent more than the same period last year.

As against 9.4 million tonnes achieved during the first four months of 2007-08, it achieved 11.15 million tonnes in the current financial year.

The reasons for this increase could be attributed to increased movement of coal out of Chennai and Tuticorin Ports.

During the month of July, Southern Railway loaded five rakes per day from Chennai and one rake per day from Tuticorin. Coal loading during April to July this year was 53 per cent more than that loaded during the same period last year.

Movement of cement by rail had increased tremendously and the Railway had shown a 57 per cent improvement in cement loaded this year (April to July) as compared to the same period last year, the release said.

The increase in diesel prices as well as increase in production of some of the plants in the Tamil Nadu cluster contributed to this.

The Railway had also marketed and captured the movement of steel by rail from the Jindal Steel Plant and the movement of limestone from New Mangalore Port. Both these commodities had shown a sharp increase in the volumes of Railway loading, it added.

UNI CGV ARB KP2000