The railways are trying out several experiments to be environment friendly.

While Central Railway (CR) has begun the process of installation of solar-powered illumination at level crossings along its sections, Western Railway (WR) is one of the first railways to run a train on bio-diesel.

Both these railways have several lakhs of saplings of jathropa seeds along their rail tracks that yield oil for bio-diesel.

“We have invited proposals to set up solar systems in the northeast and southeast sections beyond Kalyan at level crossing gates. There are a lot of other steps like recycling sewage water for non-potable use and even building green toilets on trains, which would not spoil tracks,” a senior railway official said.

As per the national bio-fuel policy, an indicative target of 20% blending of bio-fuels by 2017 has been proposed. A senior railway official said, “The railways have also set up a formal organisation named the Indian Railways Institute of Alternate Fuels to devise a technology to tap into CNG and bio-fuel. The railway ministry has commissioned two research projects under it.”

“We have a plantation of around 4 lakh saplings around our zone and we maintain plantation targets for every year,” CR spokesperson Ashok Singh said.

“WR also has several lakhs of saplings along their network. In April this year, WR ran trains on 62.72km narrow gauge section with Jathropa-based bio-diesel as fuel,” a WR official said.

The railways are toying with the idea of green toilets and have conducted successful trials on the Mumbai-Nagpur section. The swanky discharge-free “green toilets” will chemically treat a large part of the waste and store the rest in a separate compartment.