Soon, Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains likley to have bio-toilets

Kapurthala-based RCF conducting pilot study and if finds it successful then may replicate system in LHB coaches

Having fitted 3,533 bio-toilets in conventional coaches of various trains till date, now Kapurthala-based Rail Coach Factory is contemplating to introduce the system in express trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi which have stainless steel LHB (Linke Hoffman Busch) coaches.

Currently, it is conducting a pilot study and if found successful it may replicate the system in LHB coaches.

Presently these trains use the Control Discharge Toilet System (CDTS), in which the night soil gets discharged only after the train attains a particular speed i.e 30km/hour to prevent at least the station areas from being affected.

It is worth mentioning that in Bio-Toilets also called green toilets, a colony of anaerobic bacteria convert human waste mainly into water and small amount of gases (methane and CO2) in the bio-toilets has been fitted underneath the lavatories in coaches.

The gases emit into the atmosphere and waste is discharged after chlorination onto the track. Human waste thus does not fall on the railway track.

This procedure is environment-friendly and improves the working condition for the railway track staff. According to railway officials, defacement and corrosion of railway tracks by night soil cost the exchequer in crores. So all new conventional coaches inducted into Railways will now come fitted with bio-toilets.

Speaking to Business Standard, officials mentioned that bio-toilet has the advantage of preventing corrosion of railway tracks, as it prevents discharge of human waste from the coaches. RCF is conducting trials in few LHB coaches plying in Western Railways and if everything goes well, we will fit the system in existing LHB coaches as well as all new LHB coaches inducted in the railways.

RCF in association with DRDE (Defence Research and Development Establishment), has developed this highly cost effective indigenous technology for treatment of faecal waste in coaches. It has started fitting these bio-toilets in all new coaches.

Total 2096 bio-toilets have been fitted in 2013-14. This will help in providing an almost maintenance free and a low cost solution to the problem of open defecation on the railway tracks.
 
On being asked the production of coaches in last fiscal year, he added,” We closed the financial year 2013-14 with a record production of 1701 coaches against its installed capacity of 1,500 coaches per annum. During the year, RCF produced 23 different variants of coaches for high end trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Double Decker and other mail/express trains.

Besides its own production, 150 unfurnished coaches were also turned out for RCF Rae Bareli, which is a new production unit of Indain Railways where production activity has just commenced.”

In order to bring world class railway technology to the common man, LHB design stainless Steel coaches are now being proliferated in Non-AC mail/express trains also and 121 such coaches have been produced during the year. RCF has planned to completely switch over to this new technology in near future.