Indian Railways seeks “world class” interiors for passenger fleet

INDIAN Railways’ Modern Coach Factory (MCF) is seeking expressions of interest to supply “world class” interiors for 1000 new LHB-type passenger coaches. A pre-bid meeting will be held in Raebareli on November 3 with bids to be submitted by November 23.

MCF has been building stainless-steel LHB (now part of Alstom) coaches since 2000 following a technology transfer, and there are around 5000 vehicles in service. MCF has improved the interiors in the latest 100 Humsafar coaches, and has upgraded some earlier vehicles, but now wants to develop state-of-the-art interiors.

Five types of coach need to be equipped: 25 AC first class, 100 AC 2-Tier, 400 AC 3-Tier, 300 second-class non-AC sleeping cars, and 175 general, second-class non-AC coaches.

Companies can form consortia to bid with up to three companies per consortia including a maximum of one foreign partner. The lead bidder must be Indian, with foreign partners preferably based in Europe, the United States, China, Japan or Korea.

Each pre-qualified shortlisted bidder will be allocated bodyshells by MCF which need to be fitted out as prototype coaches. These will then be evaluated and the top-rated interiors will become the reference design for the technical and financial bids by the five top-ranked companies or consortia.