South East Central Railway (SECR) has test run its longest freight train Super Vasuki on 15 August as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebration. The 3.5 km long train with 295 loaded wagons and powered by five locos carried a total trailing load of about 27,000 tonne of coal, the highest fuel transportation ever carried by the Indian Railway in a single train arrangement.

The amount of coal carried by Super Vasuki is enough to fire 3000 MW of power plant for one full day. This is more than thrice the capacity of existing railway rakes (90 cars with 100 tonne in each) that carries about 9,000 tonne of coal in one journey.

The Super Vasuki train ran from Bhilai to Korba in Chhattisgarh. The Railways has run long freight trains last year too, under the names Vasuki and Trishul. But those arrangements were smaller than Super Vasuki as the length of earlier trains extended up to 2.8 km nothing like 3.5 km in the latest version.

The train was formed by amalgamating five rakes of goods trains as one unit.

Railways plans to use this arrangement (longer freight trains) more frequently, especially to transport coal in peak demand season to prevent fuel shortages of power stations.