The heat inside the shell division of Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory (ICF) can make the city’s harsh summer temperatures seem mild. Toiling in that heat are thousands of workers giving shape to the coaches that run across India’s expansive railway network.
Putting together a rail coach is like fitting the parts of a jigsaw puzzle — only that it requires much hammering, welding and cutting. The resultant decibels are deafening, and the overhead cranes, which ferry material from one bay to another, criss-cross the roof.
On the day of our visit, coaches of the high-speed Train 18 are under construction. These will soon replace the Shatabdi Express coaches. The manufacturing process begins with the making of the shell. After the partitions, roof and bottom are fixed, the wheels are added at the last and the coach is moved to another division for the interiors. Chairs, berths, window glass, fans and air-conditioners are added, and the coach is ready to roll.
Since its inception in 1955, the ICF has produced over 54,000 coaches of around 500 different designs. And these coaches run not just in India but also Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh. While Train 18 and Train 20 (to replace the prestigious Rajdhani Express coaches) are the latest variants, ICF has churned out almost everything from suburban railway compartments to the plush coaches of the Palace on Wheels, Deccan Odyssey and Golden Chariot luxury trains.
The glass-roof coaches manufactured for use in the scenic Kashmir Valley and Araku Valley have several unique features. The roof can turn opaque or transparent at the press of a switch. The rotatable seats in these coaches can be aligned to the direction of the train.
ICF is the jewel in the crown for Indian Railways. Spread over 470 acres in Perambur, it is bread-and-butter for 11,095 workers, of whom nearly 15 per cent are women (mostly in administrative roles). The numbers speak for the volume of work that goes on at the world’s largest railway coach-making factory. In 2017-18, it manufactured 2,503 units — which translates to around seven a day. The target for 2018-19 is over 3,000 coaches. That ICF has its own pincode says something about the importance it has acquired over the decades. It stands out in the concrete jungle of Perambur for its green campus, which also contains a lake, a hospital, and a school with a large playground.
Text by TE Raja Simhan ; photos by Bijoy Ghosh