Western Dedicated Freight Corridor
The Western Dedicated Freight Corridor or Western DFC is a 1,504 km long, under-construction broad gauge freight corridor in India. It will connect Dadri in Uttar Pradesh (near Delhi) with Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. The corridor is being built by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), a subsidiary of the Indian Railways, and would be electrified with double-line operation. The Western DFC entails a new single-line branch from Prithla in Palwal district to Tughlakabad in Delhi, running parallel to the existing New Delhi–Faridabad–Palwal railway line . The Western DFC is exclusively for transporting freight at higher speeds with increased load carrying capacity. The main freight commodities include fertilizers, food grains, salt, coal, iron, steel and cement. It uses Flash Butt Welded head-hardened (HH) 250 metre long rails with axle load capacity of 25t on tracks and 32.5t on bridges, compared to the existing 22.9t to 25t axle load used on Indian Railway tracks. The line will support freight trains reaching length, pulled by high-power WAG12 electric locomotives and running at speeds greater than . The tracks will be entirely grade-separated  and have a generous loading gauge of width and maximum height allowing for the double-stacked shipping container on flatcars to be transported, in contrast to wellcars used in other countries for double-stack rail transport. This allows for single trains to have a 400-container capacity. Trains will have radio communications and GSM-based tracking – a first in the Indian railway sector. The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (Eastern DFC) has a 46 km long branch line, that connects Khurja in Bulandshahr district on Eastern DFC with Dadri in Gautam Buddha Nagar district on the Western DFC. The Western DFC , along with the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, will be a vital backbone of the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). The Western DFC will cross the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway at 2 places in Haryana: Sancholi village (Gurgaon district) and Paroli village (Palwal district). About DFC. The Government of India established the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) on 30 October 2006 to undertake construction of this project. India's first 2 DFCs, Western Dedicated Freight Corridor from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (Eastern DFC) from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West  Bengal, via Khurja are aimed at decongesting the railway network by moving 70% of India's goods train to these two corridors. As of August 2021, both DFCs are on track for completion by June 2022. Route. The Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (Western DFC) will begin at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh (near Delhi) on a new stretch of railway line right of way between Dadri - Rewari and then will run parallel to existing railway lines via Narnaul, Sri Madhopur and Reengus (Sikar). The other important stations will be Phulera and Marwar Junction in Rajasthan, Palanpur, Amli Road (Sabarmati), Makarpura (Vadodara ), Gothangam/ Kosad in Gujarat and Vasai Road in Maharashtra before it terminates at JNPT (Nhava Sheva Port) in Maharashtra's Raigad district. Construction. The DFCCIL has divided the construction work of the Western DFC into 5 section for contracting purposes.