Title - Railway will replace all ICF coaches with LHB in 4 to 5 years of time

Currently two third part of Indian Railway's fleet consists of unsafe integral Coach factory type coaches. Railway Minister Piyush Goel said that in 4 to 5 years of time Railway will replace all ICF coaches with safer and modern LHB coaches. Rai Bareli modern coach Factory has sent a proposal to produce 5000 LHB coaches every year. At present this factory can produce 4000 coaches every year considering the number of coaches rolling out from the factory, it will take at least five years to replace all 60,000 ICF coaches with LHB.

As a part of ramping up production of LHB coaches, Railway is roping in various state owned companies. According to sources, no ICF coaches will be manufactured now; also Railway is planning to prematurely retire some of the older ICF coaches depending on their physical condition. However, such coaches will be used for other purposes such as additional coaches for track machines or partial vans or staff resting vans.