Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai on Sunday crossed a major milestone with a new record by turning out the 1,000th Distributed Power System (DPS) coach in the current production year (2023-24). This is the highest number of such coaches produced in a production year by Indian Railways.
The previous highest was in the year 2018-19 when ICF produced 996 DPS coaches, said an official.
DPS type of coaches include coaches for Vande Bharat train sets, Electric Multiple Units, Mainline Electric Multiple Units, Self Propelled Inspection Cars and Self Propelled Accident Relief Trains.
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The DPS are self propelled coaches with engines as part of passenger area and the propulsion power distributed among units of 3 or 4 as in Vande Bharat. The conventional trains will have only one loco at one end, so it’s not distributed power. In other words, the coach itself is a loco or engine, the official said.
While both Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli, produce DPS, the ICF has specialised in manufacturing these coaches over the years. Their volumes are low when compared to that of ICF, he added.