Railway to add 4 ambulance sleeper cars for the first time

Bangladesh Railway (BR) is on course to procure 200 broad gauge (BG) passenger carriages to meet the ongoing crisis of rail engines and expand its services by adding new trains to its fleet.

Among the carriages, there will be four AC ambulance sleeper cars as well.

Once the sleeper cars are added to the fleet, for the first time a train in Bangladesh will have ambulance facilities for ailing patients, BR sources said.

The state-run transport agency will procure the carriages under a Tk 1,704.34 crore project within June 2025.

The project, where European Investment Bank will provide Tk 1,331.20 crore as loan, is likely to be placed before the next Ecnec meeting on Tuesday, BR sources said.

The development comes at a time when 190 BG carriages, out of 468 (around 41 percent), are overaged, causing obstruction to train operations and improvement of passengers services, they said.

Once the new carriages are added to the fleet, it will also increase the availability of carriages and help to replace the old and overaged carriages.

Moreover, BR will be able to operate more trains on new routes to meet growing demands and increase revenue of the losing concern, the sources added.

According to project documents, of the 200 carriages, 80 will be Shovan Chair Cars, 42 AC Chair Cars, 25 AC Sleeper Cars, 16 Shovan Chair Cars with dining car and prayer room, and 26 AC Power Cars with luggage van and guard brake.

AMBULANCE FACILITIES

Meanwhile, each of the four AC ambulance sleeper cars will cost around Tk 7.51 crore, according to project documents.

A BR official, who is well-informed about the project, said the ambulance sleeper cars will have all facilities a usual ICU ambulance provides.

Each of the cars will have such facilities for 12 ailing patients.

Huge traffic congestion on the road and providing people with improved services at a relatively low cost are the reason behind introducing the ambulance service, the BR mechanical engineer told The Daily Star yesterday.

WHY MORE CARRIAGES?

Currently, BR has a total of 3,093km rail lines across 43 districts, of which 879.85km are Broad Gauge (BG) while 533.7km are Dual Gauge (DG) while the rest are Metre Gauge lines, according to BR's latest Information Book.

All BG lines are in the west zone.

However, the railway is currently implementing a 30-year master-plan for 2016 to 2045, divided into six phases.

A total of 230 projects, with an estimated cost of Tk 5,53,662 crore, have been proposed in the plan.

According to the masterplan, gauge conversion to BG is to be accomplished gradually so that within 30 to 35 years, the whole track will be converted to BG as part of the infrastructure rationalisation policy, show BR documents.

Additionally, the construction of Padma Bridge with rail line and dedicated railway bridge over the Jamuna river will improve connectivity between railways zones as well as with neighbouring countries, which will ultimately enhance passenger and freight traffic growth.

Internal enhanced demand, replacement of old carriages and ensuring internal traffic handling will create a necessity of 400 BG passenger carriages within two to four years, of which 200 will be required soon, reads the document.

The number of BG carriages were 324 in 2010, out of which 114 were more than 35 years old. In 2019, the number increased to 467 and stood at 468 till October last year.

Once the 200 new carriages are added to fleet, the replaced carriages could be used in local or commuter trains, based on condition reports.

Mentionable, railway has a total of 1,203 metre gauge carriages, and at least 52 percent of them are overaged.

Monjur-ul-alam Chowdhury, additional director general (Rolling Stock) of BR, and Mohammed Kudrat-E-Khuda, chief mechanical engineer (west), who is leading the project, could not be reached over phone for comments, despite several attempts.