Company type | Government factory |
---|---|
Industry | Rail transport |
Founded | 2 October 1955 |
Headquarters | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
Area served | Asia-Pacific Africa |
Key people | U. Subba Rao [1] (General Manager) |
Products | |
Production output | 4,166 coaches (2019–20) 2,702 coaches (2022–23) [2] |
Number of employees | 9,300 (2023) [2] |
Parent | Indian Railways |
Website | icf |
Integral Coach Factory is an Indian manufacturer of rail coaches. Established in 1955, it is located in Perambur in Chennai and is the largest rail coach manufacturer in the world. It is owned and operated by the Indian Railways and is the oldest amongst the five rake production units of the Indian Railways. While the facility initially manufactured ICF coaches, it currently manufactures LHB coaches and electric multiple units including the semi-high speed Vande Bharat train-sets.
After Indian Independence, the Government of India wanted to reduce the import of rail coaches to cater to the increasing traffic of the Indian Railways. In the railway budget for 1949–50, then Minister of Transport and Railways, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar announced the intention to establish a railway coach factory in India. [3] In 1949, a technical agreement was concluded with Swiss Cars and Elevator Manufacturing Corporation, a Zurich-based company for technical assistance and transfer of coach building technology. [4] A basic steel shell was designed as a prototype by the Swiss company which would form the basis of coaches to be manufactured in the new facility. [3]
In 1951, the site for the factory was chosen at Perambur, a suburb of Madras and the construction began. [4] A further extended agreement was signed in 1953 for the Swiss company to supply tools and machines to set up the factory. [3] The Integral Coach Factory is one of the earliest production units and was constructed at a cost of ₹ 74.7 million (US$940,000). [5] The factory was inaugurated by then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and rolled out its first coach on 2 October 1955. [6] The furnishing division was inaugurated on 2 October 1962. [6] [2]
The ICF consists of two main divisions, shell division and furnishing division. [7] The shell division consists of 14 individual units and manufactures the skeleton of the rail coach, where various parts that form the shell are fabricated and integrated to form a single structure that is placed on wheel sets. [7] The furnishing division consists of eight individual units and is responsible for interior furnishing, exterior painting, electrical equipment and other testing. [7] The factory had an installed capacity of 350 units per annum in 1955 with the production increasing to 1458 by 2013–14, 2277 by 2016–17 and reaching the highest at 4166 coaches in 2019–20. [2] [8] [9] As of 2020, It is the largest rail coach manufacturer in the world. [10]
In 2011, the air-conditioned train-sets manufactured by ICF for Kolkata Metro allegedly broke down causing disruption of services as the rakes were sent to Kolkata without conducting dry runs because the ICF did not have third-rail testing facilities. [11]
ICF manufactures more than 170 varieties of coaches including IC coaches, LHB coaches, Metro coaches, EMUs, DMUs and MEMUs. The coaches manufactured based on original Swiss design were termed as ICF coaches which were manufactured from 1955 to 2018. [12] The ICF coaches were replaced by newer LHB coaches designed by Linke-Hofmann-Busch of Germany. [13] In the 1960s, ICF started developing EMUs for short-haul and local routes. [14] [15]
In 2017, ICF started developing a semi-high speed train-set designed to be fully air-conditioned, equipped with modern facilities and capable of reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (99 mph). [16] In 2018, the first prototype code-named "Train 18" was completed within 18 months after initiation and was built at a cost of ₹970 million (equivalent to ₹1.3 billionorUS$16 million in 2023) with 80% indigenous components. [17] It was later re-named as Vande Bharat Express, the first of which was flagged off by the Prime Minister of India on 15 February 2019. [18] [19]
While the coach factory primarily manufactures rolling stock for Indian Railways, it also exports railway coaches to other countries. The first export was an order of 47 bogies to Thailand in 1967 and the factory has since exported 875 bogies and coaches to over 13 Afro-Asian countries including Angola, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia. [2] [20] [21] [22]
A training school, established in 1955 provides training to the personnel. [3] A Regional Railway Museum is situated in the factory premises which has a collection of nascent models of trains and models endemic to the Indian Railways. ICF maintains quarters of working staff and other associated facilities including hospitals and schools. [3] About 59.1 million units of electricity had been generated through the windmills installed by ICF in Tirunelveli district in 2011 which met 80 per cent of the plant's electrical energy requirements. [23] [24] [25]
Rail transport in India consists of primarily of passenger and freight shipments along an integrated rail network. Indian Railways (IR), a statutory body under the ownership of the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India, operates India's national railway system. It is the primary owner and operator of rail operations throughout the country including suburban rail in major metros.
Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India that operates India's national railway system. As of 2023, it manages the fourth largest national railway system by size with a running track length of 104,647 km (65,025 mi) and route length of 68,426 km (42,518 mi) of which 60,451 km (37,563 mi) is electrified. With more than 1.2 million employees, it is the world's ninth-largest employer and India's second largest employer.
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Southern Railway (SR) is one of the eighteen zones of Indian Railways. It is headquartered at Chennai and operates across the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and the union territory of Puducherry. The origin of the Southern Railway can be traced back to the Madras Railway formed in 1845. Southern Railway was created on 14 April 1951 by merging three state railways, namely, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway Company, and the Mysore State Railway. Southern Railway maintains about 5,081 km (3,157 mi) of railway lines and operates 727 railway stations.
Perambur is a neighbourhood located in the northern region of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Indian Railways coaching stock consists of various travel class passenger coaches, freight wagons apart from specialized and dedicated coaching stock for other uses. Indian Railways operates India's railway system and comes under the purview of the Ministry of Railways of Government of India. As of 2022, it operates over 8000 trains daily with a inventory of 318,196 freight wagons and 84,863 passenger coaches. The rolling stock is manufactured by five units owned by Indian Railways, four public sector units and one private company.
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Vande Bharat Express is a medium-distance superfast express service operated by Indian Railways. It is a reserved, air-conditioned chair car service connecting cities that are less than 800 km (500 mi) apart or take less than ten hours to travel with existing services. The train entered commercial service on 15 February 2019.
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The Vande Bharat trainset, formerly known as Train 18, is an Indian electric multiple unit chair car trainset designed and developed by Indian Railways at its Integral Coach Factory in Chennai. The train achieved a maximum speed of 183 km/h (114 mph) during its trial runs but the operational speed of the train is restricted to 160 km/h (99 mph) due to tracks' inability to support such speeds.
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Launched as Train 18 and rechristened as Vande Bharat, the trains that are designed to run at a maximum speed of 180 km per hour are indigenously manufactured at the ICF since 2018