Hyderabad, Apr 14 (IANS): With passenger train traffic coming down to a standstill due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the South Central Railway (SCR) has come up with a unique concept of running 'Jai Kisan' Special freight trains so as to ensure speedy delivery of food-grains to different parts of the country.

The chief public relations officer Ch Rakesh said that taking advantage of the path availability due to non-running of passenger carrying trains, SCR decided to club two freight trains, loaded in two different stations, at the nearest junction point. From there, the clubbed freight trains will proceed as a single train, up to the common junction point of the destination stations.

Under normal circumstances, a freight train with 42 covered wagons loaded with food grains carries around 2600 tonnes. But with the 'clubbing' concept it will be possible to transport 5,200 tonnes or 84 covered wagons of freight in the same time frame.

The zone had tried this concept by operating two Jai Kisan Special freight trains. The first train was clubbed at Dornakal Junction in Telangana on SCR and sent to Sevuru and Chettinad in the Southern Railway zone.

Similarly, the second Jai Kisan Special train was also clubbed at Dornakal Junction and moved to Dindigal and Mudiyapakkam, also under Southern Railway zone. Officials at SCR said that during both these runs, it was observed that the trains registered an average speed of 44 kmph, fulfilling the objective of speedy movement of the essential commodities.