The Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) and a leading vehicle manufacturing company in Sri Lanka launched a special vehicle transporting system by using a train with several cars from Polgahawela to Hunupitiya Railway station in Kelaniya today.

A senior officer for the SLR said this system would reduce the vehicle transporting cost, time and the mounting traffic on roads with heavy vehicle carriers.

“As per the first ever launch, we transported four cars and we hope to expand the facilities to transport vehicles up to 30 at a time. Thereafter, we are planning to expand the vehicle transportation island wide,” he said.

He said that if the new system turned out to be a success, the SLR would deploy dedicated trains to transport vehicles in future.  

“We modified a wagon with loading and unloading functions as well as loading and unloading pits at the railway stations. After loading vehicles we tightened each and every vehicle with security belts to make the vehicles stable and secure in the wagon,” the official said.

A reasonable cost would be charged for transport after the system was implemented. (Chaturanga Pradeep-DM Online)