Gateway Distriparks plans to expand Rail Business : Chairman

Gateway Distriparks is planning to expand its rail business and will stall investments on its container freight business, its Chairman was quoted as saying recently. The company also plans to double its cold chain logistics handling capacity in 2 years, said a person in the know.

In December we did the highest in the history of the company in the rail business says Gateway Distriparks Chairman

“In Gateway Rail, we were doing very well before Covid and at Covid time, the volumes dropped significantly. But from Q3 onwards, in December we did the highest in the history of the company in the rail business. The trend is continuing in the month of January and will continue to look up going forward,” Prem Kishan Dass Gupta said recently.

The company spent Rs 1,200 crore on the rail business in the last decade. Its business is aligned to the western dedicated freight corridor (DFC) and will expand considerably as additional phases of the DFC are completed.

Company operates a fleet of 31 trains and 335 road trailers at its terminals.

Gateway Rail provides inter-modal logistics and operates its own rail-linked Inland Container Depots (ICD) at Gurugram, Faridabad, Ludhiana and Viramgam. It also operates a domestic terminal at Mumbai. The company operates a fleet of 31 trains and 335 road trailers at its terminals. Gateway Rail operates regular container train services from these ICDs to the Nhava Sheva, Mundra and Pipavav ports, transporting export import as well as domestic containers. All major shipping lines operate from these terminals.

“When the DFC is ready, we can have a turnaround of less than 24 hours,” Mr. Gupta added. “We see a big jump of this heavyweight cargo. A lot of light weight cargo will also shift from road to rail.”

Mr. Gupta said the company was currently handling 250,000 TEUs at all its locations, but its handling capacity with all its land bank is 1.5 million TEUs. The land bank and the fact that all further trains will be leased will make the expansion less capital intensive, he added.

The DFC link to Pipavav and Mundra will be extended in a few months, while the one to Nava Sheva it will take a year.

In container segment “volumes are less, and competition is intense”

Mr. Gupta said there is a throughput increase in containers, but the company will not make any further investments in the segment as “volumes are less, and competition is intense”.

GDL operates two Container Freight Stations at Navi Mumbai and one each at Chennai, Krishnapatnam, Kochi and Visakhapatanam with a total capacity of over 600,000 TEUs. These CFSs offer transportation & storage, general and bonded warehousing, empty handling and several value-added services.