Railway converting its Tk 358-crore luggage vans into passenger coaches

Bangladesh Railway had added 125 luggage vans at a cost of Tk 358 crore 39 lakh to carry agricultural and other goods at low cost. But farmers and traders did not respond as expected, and the vans became a burden on the railway. Now the railway authorities have taken an initiative to convert those luggage vans into passenger coaches.

Sources in the railway's transport division said the then Awami League government signed a contract worth Tk 358 crore 39 lakh with a Chinese company on August 31, 2020, to buy the luggage vans for carrying agricultural and other goods quickly and cheaply.

Under the contract, 125 luggage vans were imported from China in September 2023 under the Rolling Stock Operation Improvement (Rolling Stock Procurement) project of Bangladesh Railway, financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Of them, 75 are metre gauge and 50 are broad gauge.

The luggage vans were added to the railway's eastern and western fleets. Each broad-gauge luggage van, with a capacity of 8 to 9 tonnes, cost Tk 3 crore 5 lakh, and each metre-gauge van cost Tk 2 crore 45 lakh. Among them are 28 freezing luggage vans.

Earlier there were 50 old luggage vans, of which only 18 were operational.

The source further said that even though the new luggage vans were added to trains three years ago, farmers and traders did not respond as expected. Before the new vans were added, the railway earned an average of Tk 72 lakh a month from parcel transport. After the vans were added, that rose to Tk 77 lakh a month. In other words, after spending Tk 358 crore 39 lakh, the railway is earning only Tk 7 lakh more per month on average.

A meeting was held at the Ministry of Railways on January 5 last year to examine why the luggage vans were lying unused. According to the meeting's working paper, only 5 percent of the railway's 125 luggage vans are in use, while the remaining 95 percent lie unused. In view of that, the initiative was taken to convert the luggage vans into passenger coaches.

Shah Sufi Noor Mohammad, divisional manager of the Syedpur Railway Workshop, said the railway minister and the state minister, along with senior officials, visited the workshop on October 18. At that time the proposal to use the luggage vans for passenger transport was presented, and it was shown how the bogies could be converted.

However, an engineer of the Syedpur railway workshop, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is currently a severe shortage of spare parts at the workshop. Most of the parts would have to be imported from abroad, so converting the luggage vans into coaches for passenger transport would be extremely expensive and would be another suicidal decision.

Shah Sufi Noor Mohammad, divisional superintendent (DS) of the Syedpur Railway Workshop, said the coaches brought to the workshop have been tested in various ways. Alongside the workshop's workers, employees and officers, experts from India also worked on it.

He said a trial run of the coaches up to Panchagarh will be held on Sunday.