Car Manufacturers That Use Indian Railways For Car Transport: Anand Mahindra Is Grateful To Indian Railways

Using trains to transport cars is not a new idea and manufacturers have been doing it for a few decades now. However, the Indian market has traditionally relied on roadways to transport newly-built cars from the factory.

Trucks are not the most efficient way to transport cars since they can accommodate only a few cars, which again depends on the size and they also consume a lot of time thanks to the various hurdles faced by them on Indian roads. For manufacturers like Mahindra this dilemma is worsened, as it manufactures only SUVs and these vehicles take up a lot of space on trucks.

Thankfully though, the Indian Railways recognised this problem and soon made car transportation much easier for mainstream manufacturers. A few manufacturers have been using the Indian Railways to transport their cars from the factory to regional depots from where the cars are transported by road to the dealership where buyers await their new cars.

Mahindra is one of the manufacturers that depends on the Indian Railways for a majority of its transportation. A video uploaded by a Twitter user drew limelight to this system of transportation.

On 21 May 2022, Shakti Chaturvedi tweeted, "As always, ##IndianRailways at its best. Craze & Demand for #Mahindra #Scorpio in the Indian market can be seen in this video. Today I get to know the reason behind availability of Scorpio as compared to other Cars. anandmahindra Sir I hope you would be happy to see this clip."

This tweet was accompanied by a short video of what looks like a few hundred Mahindra Scorpio SUVs being transported on a flat-bed carriage. The location from where the video was taken is uncertain. However, it does go on to display just how big an impact transporting cars by railway creates.

Earlier today, Anand Mahindra replied to the tweet, "I'm not sure that's the reason that Scorpios are more available, although we are indeed grateful to the Railways for their efficient services! But you're absolutely right that I'm happy to see this clip. The More Mahindras the Merrier!"

Apart from Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki is another car manufacturer that heavily relies on railways for the transportation of its cars. Maruti Suzuki is India's first automobile manufacturer to obtain an AFTO (Automobile Freight Transport Operator) license from the Indian Railways. This allows the company to operate its own trains and carriages without any direct dependence on the Indian Railways.

Maruti Suzuki currently operates 41 railway rakes with each of these rakes carrying over 300 cars at once. This is an immense number and Maruti Suzuki has so far transported over 11 lakh cars and thereby saved 17.4 crore litres of fossil fuel by avoiding trucks. This also helps reduce damage to the environment.

The only disadvantage with transporting cars on open flat-beds like the Mahindra Scorpios here is that they are open to the elements. Rain and sunshine can cause some damage and then if the train is stationary, some mischievous social elements could cause some damage. Maruti Suzuki on the hand uses completely covered rail cars which are then locked.

Thoughts On Car Manufacturers Using Indian Railways For Transportation Of New Cars

Quite obviously, the advantages of using railways for transportation of cars outweigh the disadvantages, and Anand Mahindra and the logistics team at Mahindra know just as much. Kudos to the Indian Railways for helping India get around so much more easily.