OREANDA-NEWS. February 04, 2013. The Indian Railways is hosting the 10th International Heavy Haul Association (IHHA) Conference in New Delhi from 4th to 6th February 2013. The conference is organised once in every four years. The last conference was held in Shanghai China in 2009.

 The Conference is an excellent forum for railway researchers, practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders from all over the world to meet and share their knowledge and experience and perhaps open new frontiers in heavy haul railway operation.

 Heavy haul rail operation has evolved over the years as a technology to transport bulk commodities in large volumes and reduce the unit cost of transportation. Heavy haul envisages increased axle load of 24 tonnes and above. Train lengths have also increase up to 4 km. The trailing train loads vary from 10,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes.

 IHHA is a worldwide non government, scientific and technological association of Heavy Haul Railways incorporate in USA and is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in Heavy Haul operation, Engineering, maintenance and technology. India, USA, Canada, Brazil, Russia, China Sweden, South Africa, and Australia are the members of International Heavy Haul Association.

 Three day Technical Program will address recent research and best practices related to key issues involved in running heavy haul and long haul freight trains. The central theme of the conference is “Building Transport Capacity through Heavy Haul Operation”. The technical Programme presents over 120 oral papers in four parallel sessions for three days. There is a poster session presenting 25 papers. Papers will be presented by experts from more than 16 countries. Participation of nearly 300 foreign and 500 Indian delegates is expected. An exhibition to showcase new technologies is being organised for all the three days at the same venue. The conference is preceded by three day Track and rail wheel interaction workshop where 19 leading experts in the field of Heavy Haul will teach Best Practices for Heavy Haul Operations-Infrastructure Construction and maintenance issues.

 Indian Railways have launched a huge programme of building Heavy Haul Lines having potential axle load of 32.5 tonnes under the programme name Dedicated Freight Corridors. Few lines connecting ports are being built or operated at 25 tonne axle load and are transporting iron ore. The conference is sponsored by large numbers of corporate both from India and abroad.