Railways to use Zinc to stop corrosion of tracks

Railways to use zinc to stop corrosion of tracks:

The railway board has decided to go ahead for using zinc coated rails in order to strengthen safety and performance, mainly in the corrosion-prone coastal regions. The requirement will be about 1000 track kilometers or approximately 120000 tonnes of zinc every year. An official said that, the ideal life of rail is around 12 years but due to corrosion issues, rail need to be replaced in every two years in many areas. The railway research arm- research design and standards organization (RDSO) has issued the specification for zinc aluminum metallization coating. These specification were prepared after consulting the International Zinc Association (IZA) and other industry stakeholders. Zinc can be used to coat steel to reduce the corrosion even when a scratch or cut exposes steel to air or moisture.

The railway incurs a huge losses annually due to corrosion. It also poses a threat to passenger safety and also impacts daily travel as the train speed are reduced which causes in reducing the efficiency. An official also said that, according to the annual report of railways for the FY19, there were 59 consequential train accidents in the year of 2018-2019 compared to the 72 accidents in 2017 – 18. This shows a 0.05 lesser in the index of safety during the year 2018-2019 as compared to 0.06 in 2017-2018. The railway track renewal has gathered pace in the last few years. In 2018-2019, 4,181km of track was renewed even as 3,872 km rail tracks have been laid till January 2020, against the target of 3900 km for 2019-2020.

Globally, London’s Tube and French railway networks use this technology in their corrosion prone areas.  And now the Indian Railways is also focusing on adopting the new technology. The railways used to procure rails from the SAIL only in earlier days but now both the state owned company and the Jindhal Steel & Power supply rails. The railways has ordered for a 2000 ton Zinc coated rails from SAIL.

The use of zinc coated track will not increase the cost substantially. While the International Zinc Association (IZA) is supplying this technology to the railways for free. And it seems like the cost of making the new zinc coated rail is comparatively lower than 10% of the cost of steel used by the Railways to make the rail.