Indian Railways is all set to set up a Special Railway Establishment for Strategic Technology and Holistic Advancement (SRESHTA), a new entity that will comprise mostly scientists and railway experts. SRESHTA will be responsible for long-term research for improving the functioning of the public sector behemoth. The new research unit will be headed by a reputed scientist, who will report directly to the Chairman, Railway Board.

Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), railways’ current research arm, will focus only on day-to-day issues. Currently new technology is imported by railways as the RDSO has not been able to do in-house research work on various technologies required for upgradation in signalling and telecommunication system, track designing, improvement in rolling stock and many such areas.

However, despite the constraints, RDSO is credited for developing of pre-stressed concrete sleepers used for laying tracks and the newly designed double decker coaches.

Main Focus of SRESHTA – Use of latest technology in improving passenger amenities

Besides, a dedicated cross functional team called Special Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics (SUTRA) would be set up for carrying out detailed analysis for optimal investment decisions and operations. The team would comprise professional analysts and have best in class decision support systems and optimization engines.

It is a well-established fact that data backed decision making is the hallmark of great institutions and SUTRA is being set up for this purpose only.

Did You Know?

• Vivek Express from Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari travels a distance of 4273 km, making it the longest run in terms of total time and distance in  Indian Railways.
• The Indian Railways website gets close to 12 Lakh hits per minute.
• If the tracks of Indian railways were to be laid out, they would circle the earth almost 1.5 times
• The Rail Museum in Delhi is the largest in Asia
• The railway station of Navapur is built in two states; half in Maharashtra and the rest is in Gujarat
• Indian Railways has a mascot – Bholu, the Guard Elephant