Waning traffic pushes Railways to cut down passenger coach production

New Delhi, Aug 7 The Indian Railways has proposed to cut down its passenger coach production almost by half over next couple of years as it looks to get leaner with competition from roadways and airways eating into its traffic.

In a meeting taken by the Railway Board to finalise coach manufacturing programme for FY23 and FY24, it was decided that passenger coach production from four of its manufacturing facilities will be cut down by over 46 per cent in FY24.

This would mean Railway's coach manufacturing would fall from a level of around 6,000-7,000 units to just about 4,000 a year. In fact, the passenger coach manufacturing has been kept at 7,551 units for next fiscal year 2022-23 that would fall just about 4,027 units in FY24, as per a letter dated July 28 shot off by the ministry of railways to general managers of all its four coach manufacturing units.

Most striking cuts have been proposed for LHB or Linke Hofmann Busch coaches that are made to run Railway's passenger services. Here the production is proposed to fall from about 5,489 units in FY23 to just about 1,677 in FY24, a drastic 70 per cent cut.

Currently the Linke Hofmann Busch

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