Historically Nagpur being a centrally located hinterland area serves a key position in handling Rail traffic to and from various zones of Indian Railways and hence there is always a resource crunch for Locomotives and Crew members in this Central Zone.

Indian Railways honoured the request of Distribution Logistics Infrastructure (DLI) to give them this Long-Haul rake arrangement to clear their Export Laden pendency at their Terminal at Borkhedi ICD.

This Python Rake (Long Haul Rake) will have minimal stoppages only at main junctions so as to reduce transit time from Borkhedi ICD to Nhava Sheva.

This special arrangement was offered by Indian Railways to DLI as a good gesture to explore the new opportunities of connecting hinterland ports to the gateway ports especially in the times when there is shortages of Engines and Crew in the Central Zone. This arrangement will also reduce carbon footprints thereby saving cost to DLI as a rail operator and to the Indian Railways with optimum utilization of their resources.

This new attempt was carried out by DLI as a preparedness measure to cater the trade when there is huge pendency of Imports at the Sea Port and Exports at their terminal in Borkhedi ICD.

Nagpur trade has welcomed this initiative by DLI and praised their timely operations to handle this rake and reported this special arrangement as a path braking phenomenon.

DLI Management is hopeful in future to run these kinds of Long-Haul Rakes / Python Trains to facilitate the trade at large.