Ro-Ro trains not feasible, say transport associations

Mumbai: The Ro-Ro experiment where trucks will be transported on railway wagons of both central and western railway (CR and WR) has run into practical hurdles. While the idea behind this was to shift some of the burden from Thane-Belapur road and decongest it, transport associations have said that they are not keen to use the service because it will, in fact, take them more time than in the current situation.

According to railway sources, transporters said that it is not a feasible solution as they will have to wait for the Ro-Ro trains that are supposed to run at fixed intervals. A railway official said, “Transporters have said that since these trains will run only say every 24 hours and they will have to wait their turn for the next Ro-Ro, they will bleed money. They said that they would send their trucks to the destination instead of waiting for so long.”

Railway officials themselves are of the view that the service will affect long distance trains on CR and WR as their path of entry and exit lies along the Ro-Ro path i.e. Kolad-Panvel-Diva-Vasai. A Ro-Ro trial was conducted on January 5 between Pen and Boisar that was completed in six hours.

Jaykant Patil, senior executive with a JNPT-based transport company, said, “At one end, the same stretch between Pen and Boisar would have taken a truck around 10 hours so we are saving four hours but on the other end, if our truck does not get a slot on the Ro-Ro train, railways have said that given rail traffic in Mumbai, the next such train will run only after 24 hours. This is not feasible for us.”