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Titagarh Wagons plans to significantly increase rolling stock production

3 August 2022
Reading time ~ 5 min
Freight car production at one of the Titagarh Wagons plants
Freight car production at one of the Titagarh Wagons plants. Source: Sajjal Bose, businessindia
Litvintsova Olga, Editor of International Projects, ROLLINGSTOCK Agency
Reading time ~ 5 min
Stolchnev Alexey, Russian Projects Editor, ROLLINGSTOCK Agency

India: Over the next three years, the company intends to increase the annual production of freight cars at its Titagarh plant from 8,000 to 12,000 units, as well as to build new facilities for the production of stainless steel metro trains, which will increase the annual production of passenger cars from 250 up to 450 units. Umesh Chowdhary, Managing Director of Titagarh Wagons, said the new facility will be set up on an abandoned site at the Uttarpara freight car factory.

Chowdhary explains the increase in the production of rolling stock by the company’s plans to expand the geography of deliveries. Thus, Titagarh Wagons intends to start exporting freight cars to African countries, as well as to start deliveries of components for freight wagons to the USA and Europe. Furthermore, the manufacturer plans to take part in the tender of the Indian Railways for the supply of 90,000 freight cars within three years with an expected investment of about 300 bln RS ($3.9 bln USD): particularly, 42,000 gondola cars and 40,000 hopper wagons are planned for procurement. Titagarh Wagons, together with 15 other companies, applied to participate in this competition in April this year.

In terms of plans to supply metro cars, in July the company, along with Alstom, Mitsubishi and India’s BEML, submitted a bid for Bangalore Metro’s tender for the supply of 12 six-car trains. Applications are currently undergoing technical evaluation, which can take several months. Initially, the Chinese CRRC was supposed to provide Bangalore with rolling stock. At the end of 2019, it received a contract for the supply of 216 metro cars for $240 mln USD, 204 of which were to be produced in India. However, CRRC failed to set up a plant in the country and the negotiations with Titagarh Wagons for joint production came to nothing. The delivery of the first batch was postponed indefinitely.

Titagarh Wagons traces its history back to 1997 when the company launched the production of freight cars at its Titagarh plant. At that time, the annual production volume was 180 cars. Now the company has three production sites in India (Titagarh, Uttarpar and Bharatpur), which can annually produce up to 8,000 freight cars of almost all types (box cars, gondola cars, hopper wagons, container platforms, tank cars, etc.), 25,000 t of railcar castings and various components, including locomotive bodies, bogies and coupling devices.

Metro train manufactured by Titagarh in Italy Metro train manufactured by Titagarh in Italy. Source: catania.mobilita.org

In 2007, Titagarh Wagons became the first private company in India to master the production of electric trains for Indian Railways. The official website of the manufacturer states that more than 250 trains have been delivered to the national railway operator so far, which is the highest among all private manufacturers in India. The company owns one site in Kolkata for such production.

Also in 2015, Titagarh Wagons acquired the second largest Italian manufacturer of passenger rolling stock, Firema Trasporti, later Titagarh Wagons changed its name to Titagarh Firema (TFA). Now this division of the company designs metro cars and produces them at its factories in Caserta, Spello and Tito. It is stated that the TFA portfolio includes projects of high-speed trains, single- and double-decker electric trains, diesel trains, trams and others. Earlier this year, TFA signed a framework agreement with the Italian region of Lazio to supply up to 38 six-car metro trains for €282 mln to the Rome Metro. The “firm” part of the contract covers the delivery of 11 trains for €79 mln. The company also recently delivered a second two-car Barbara metro train to Catania under a contract signed in April 2019 for the delivery of 10 trains of this series with an option for other 44 units.