Bangladesh Railway: British’s Fallen Legacy
British’s took a lot from the Indian sub-continent during her almost 200 years of regime, crippled many promising industries and ruined the economy. Where in 1700 this subcontinent produced 24% of the world’s GDP, it went down to just 4% in 1950. But after their leaving, the railway networks they have created helped to reshape the economy. And Still Bangladesh India and Pakistan are using so many British era’s rail networks, wagons, coaches, stations, bridges, methods, laws and other assets. And even almost 150 years ago they build their railway with well researched plan and considering the future needs and demands. However, Pakistan and Bangladesh both countries badly failed to carry the legendary British engineering master plan and still squeezing out every possible penny out of it.
Here is a short summary of Bangladesh Railway for last 50 years. Interesting thing is that from 1947 to 1970, while Bangladesh was East Pakistan , during this period no such big projects were taken for the railway except buying diesel locomotives , some of them are still in use ( 6000 and 6100 series) .
Item | 1969-1970 | 2017-2018 |
Route in Kilometers | 2858 km | 2955 km |
Track in kilometers | 4448 km | 4324 km |
Locomotives | 486 | 272 |
Passenger Carriages/ coach | 1165 | 1577 |
Passenger Carried | 72.9 million | 90.05 million |
Freight Wagons | 19616 | 8695 |
But the truth is in the last 50 years Bangladesh railway’s improvement is disappointing. And here are the facts
1. In last 50 years railways traffic increased a lot but the tracks doesn’t. Old tracks being modernized with high prize tag but lower quality. There is no continuous double track currently available. Railway is still operating in single line. And it hampers the speed and security. Only double line project Dhaka to Chattogram was surveyed in 2003-2004 and this project hasn’t finished yet either, still under construction and estimated to finished by 2022. And also BR (Bangladesh Railway) doesn’t operate any electric train, line or loco.
2. In 1970 BR had 486 locomotives among them 143 were diesel. But in 2021 Bangladesh railway has only 292 locos. Among this 104 are broad gauge and rest 188 are meter gauge. In the 104 BG (broad gauge) locos only 48 are in their service age, and the rest 56 are expired that means they aged 35 years or older. And in this 56 locos, some of it are badly damaged, some of it are in bad condition and a whole series 6200 is withdrawn right now. Last year BR got 10 WDM-3D locomotives from India which are currently in use for only transit and import. 10 of 188 MG locos were imported last year from south Korea but the locos weren’t delivered as the deal, and BR is facing so many problems in using this, and decided not to use them on passenger carriages. Among the rest 178 MG locos, 39 are relatively modern and new and good to use (2900 series). So it’s clear that currently BR is badly suffering from loco shortage.
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| 75 Years Old Locomotive of Bangladesh Railway |
3. Passenger carriage is something that actually improved during last 5-6 years. BR bought a big number of coaches from PT Inka Indonesia for BG and MG both and LHB India for just BG coach. But buying LHB coaches become controversial when LHB delivered old repaired coaches instead of new. Some of the LHB coaches seeps during rain and it’s power-generator uses too much fuel.
BR is currently collecting new carriages and the exact number till 2021 hasn’t published yet.
4. Freight section is at worst condition than others. In last 50 years BR bought just 298 freight wagons. Most of them are oil carrier. In 2017-2018 average freight train operating speed was just 12 km/h. In 1971 BR had 19000 wagons and now has just 8000. So what happen to the rest 11000 wagons? Rest of the wagon were sold as scrap iron. And in this selling there is a huge accusation of corruption for several employees, political leaders, officers and other stuffs .
This short summery is not enough to show the proper condition of Bangladesh Railway but I think it’s enough to give a glimpse. Soon a full research will be published about Bangladesh Railway’s current condition, on going projects, future projects and their pros cons and social economic impacts.
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