Where are railcars or railbuses operated?

July 9, 2019, 12:22 PM

Historically, many sections have seen railcar or railbus service in India. There have been several imported models used, and also homegrown versions which are often literally buses or truck bodies placed on rails. In recent years, many sections have seen the introduction of railbus or railcar services. This recent program of adding railbus or railcar services probably began with the Merta City – Merta Road service in the 1980’s. This section still runs BG railbuses.

BG railbus service is also found on the Bangarpet-Kolar, Mathura-Vrindavan, Goindwal-Beas, and Bobilli-? (on Vizianagaram-Bilaspur line) routes. The Kanpur-Brahmawart railbus service (early 1990s) appears to have been withdrawn. Tumsar Road – Tirodi service introduced in 1998 has been withdrawn, and the two railbuses are reported [5/05] to be stabled at Tumsar yard.

MG railbuses are found in several places (Silchar-Jiribam, Junagadh-Dhari, Tiruturaipundi-Agastiampalli, Banmankhi-Bihariganj, Shimoga-Talaguppa, Ambliyasan-Vijapur-Adraj Moti of WR, etc., and especially on NER). Sometimes two railbus units are operated together, making them technically a railcar formation. The well-known railcar service for Bangalore/Yeshwanthpur stopped a few years ago. Some MG railcars were built by converting ICF MG coaches.

Yelahanka- Kolar Gold Fields – Bangarpet had an NG railcar service in the past, but the section is being converted to BG. The NG railcars (4 in number, class ZRD) were converted to MG for use on the Shimoga-Talaguppa section. A view of one of these appears in Bill Aitken’s ‘Exploring Indian Railways’. Bankura-Damodar, Bankura-Rainagar, Bodeli – Chota Udepur are other NG sections with railbus service.

[7/00] Ankleshwar – Raj Pipla is also supposed to get NG railcar service soon. In these NG railcars, the power car has a 22-passenger capacity and the trailer cars have a 31-passenger capacity. There was also an NG railbus service between Kalka and Shimla but now single-unit railcars are said to work the line. Shantipur-Nabadwipdham is another section with railcars. Barddham-Katwa and Ahmadpur-Katwa have railbus service. The Shimoga-Talaguppa section now [2004] has railbuses (class YRD-2) that are based on the road buses used by the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation.

Some railbuses and railcars were made by the Izzatnagar works by placing road vehicle bodies on wheels modified for the rails. Recently BEML has been making many BG railbuses (class WRB) – see below. These are more purpose-built as rail vehicles and not just crudely retrofitted road vehicles. The older railbuses often have an Ashok Leyland bus engine with a Hindustan Motors hydraulic transmission (under licence from Allison). RDSO developed a BG railbus design with 60 seats, powered by a normal bus engine and suitable for bidirectional running, in 1993.

Source – IFRCA.org

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