Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC)

The Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) are a mega rail transport project being undertaken to increase transportation capacity, reduce unit costs of transportation, and improve service quality.

• Railways share in freight transportation is about 36 per cent of total goods transported in the country and the Railways aims to increase it substantially.
• The dedicated freight-only lines are being built along the four key transportation routes – known as the Golden Quadrilateral and connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Howrah and its two diagonals (Delhi – Chennai and Mumbai – Howrah), covering a total of 10,122 km, these corridors carry the heaviest traffic and are highly congested.

Significance: Freight corridor permit the trains to carry higher loads, in a more reliable manner and these lines are also being built to maximize speeds to 100 km an hour, up from the current average freight speed of 20 km an hour.

• Dedicated Freight Corridors will offer higher transport output with faster transit of freight trains. Running of planned double stack container trains and heavy haul will also add to the carrying capacity.
• The unit cost of freight transport will substantially be reduced and there will be significant savings in the Logistics cost as well. This would improve the supply chain for the industries/logistics players etc. leading to additional freight volumes and growth of EXIM traffic as well.
• It will promote Industrial activities in the region by levaraging the Industrial corridors/townships being implemented along the DFC route.
• Create direct and indirect employment in the project-influence areas.
• Environment friendly