Steel Authority of India Limited’s Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) has developed and dispatched the first consignment of steel axles for exclusive use in Linke Hofman Busch (LHB) coaches manufactured by national transporter Indian Railways, a company statement said on Tuesday, May 18.
The company said that the first batch of 53 steel axles for LHB coaches has been dispatched to Modern Coach Factory operated by IR in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
According to SAIL, the development and supplies of the steel axles is significant to meet rising demand from IR as the latter is shifting from the use of Broad Gauge (BG) coaches to more specialized and modern LHB coaches which require a new generation of steel axles.
SAIL said that the steel axles were developed through joint collaboration of three steel mills operating under SAIL - DSP, Alloy Steel Plant (ASP) and Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (VISP).
While DSP produced the hot metal, ASP converted it into steel, and VISL forged the LHB axles. After getting the forged axles from VISL, DSP did the heat treatment and machining of the axles. All the machined axles then underwent dimensional modification as well as non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection by IR’s consultancy arm RITES Limited, the steel company statement said.