The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) has pushed the deadline to complete the last leg of western dedicated freight corridor (WDFC) by three months to March 2026, a DFCCIL source told FE.
The official said that the last stretch of the WDFC between Vaitarna and JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port) was expected to finish by March last year but it was further extended to December.
“The track linking work on this 102-km stretch has already completed. The issues like land acquisition and encroachments have been sorted long ago. The delay is primarily due to the pending signalling and OHE (overhead equipment) works. It will take about 2-3 months to fully commission this leg,” the official said.
DFC project is divided into two parts: eastern dedicated freight corridor (EDFC) and WDFC. The EDFC was fully commissioned in 2024, and both the corridors handled an average of 406 trains per day in December. Once the WDFC is complete, the movement is expected to ramp up to about 440 trains per day.
Trucks-on-Trains Service
Meanwhile, the official said that the DFCCIL has received 45 new rakes from the Indian Railways which will be used for trucks-on-trains (ToT) service that allows loaded trucks to be carried on specially-modified flat wagons along the DFC.
“Each rake carries about 30 wagons with 25 of them being used by Amul to ferry milk between Palanpur (Gujarat) to Delhi NCR. We will be adding more rakes going forward,” the official said.
Recently, a total of 892 ‘interchange’ trains were handled in a single day between the DFC network and five zones of Indian Railways, marking the highest interchange achieved since commissioning of the corridors.
Efficiency and Speed
A profitable organisation with a 9% financial rate of return, DFCCIL has just about 4% of the overall rail network but it is carrying about 13-14% of the railways’ freight load. The trains operating on DFCs have an average speed of 55-60 kmph that is more than double of the average speed of 18-20 kmph for the Indian railways.
The project, which is funded through borrowings from multilateral agencies like the World Bank, JICA, and MUFG Bank, is expected to reduce overall logistics costs, improve productivity, ease congestion and spur the development of new industrial hubs and Gati Shakti cargo terminals.