9.5-hour trip takes 75 hours – locomotive crunch derails freight movement

Infograph: TBS

A journey scheduled for nine and a half hours ended up taking nearly three days. On 28 June, a freight train left Chattogram Goods Port Yard for the Kamalapur Inland Container Depot in Dhaka, only to breakdown in the Hasanpur-Nangalkot section. Without a replacement locomotive available, the train sat stranded, eventually reaching its destination roughly 75 hours later.

This episode illustrates a severe operational bottleneck for Bangladesh Railway. Once a cheaper, reliable alternative to road transport, the freight service is breaking down due to an acute shortage of serviceable locomotives.

Scrambling for locomotives

An internal railway report detailing the 53 days between 1 June and 23 July 2026 reveals that 49 freight trains suffered a cumulative delay of 1,147 hours solely due to locomotive shortages. More than 40% of these delays occurred because locomotives were detached from freight trains to serve passenger routes. In the most extreme case, a fuel tanker train bound for Chattogram was stranded at Akhaura for over 12 days – 296 hours – after its locomotive was diverted.

The consequences are visible in the railway's own numbers.

Freight train operations fell to 1,467 trips in the fiscal 2025-26 from 2,770 in FY22, a decline of about 47%. Freight revenue fell from Tk354.40 crore to Tk163.31 crore over the same period.

More worrying is the collapse in locomotive allocation. The average number of locomotives allocated daily to freight services fell from 9.91 in FY22 to just 3.14 in FY26.

In March 2022, Bangladesh Railway ran 217 freight trains, including 161 container trains, on the Chattogram-Dhaka route and other services. The freight sector then received an average of 10-12 locomotives a day. Now only two or three locomotives are generally available for freight operations, according to railway officials.

According to World Bank benchmarks, rail freight in Eastern South Asia averages $0.023 per tonne-kilometre compared to $0.060 for road transport. Moving a 20-foot container by rail between Dhaka and Chattogram costs between Tk9,700 and Tk16,100, whereas standard covered vans charge Tk17,000 to Tk18,000—a figure that spiked to Tk26,000 during recent fuel supply squeezes.

Despite these clear cost advantages, manufacturers, energy authorities, and importers are consistently forced onto the roads due to missing delivery timelines.

Red tapes

Railway Director General Md Afzal Hossain pointed to an ageing fleet and complex procurement rules as the core causes. Meter-gauge spare parts are increasingly scarce globally, and local tender processes take two to three years. Consequently, 50- to 60-year-old locomotives remain in service well past their operational lifespan.

Systemic infrastructure misallocation has compounded the crisis. Between June 2009 and June 2024, Bangladesh Railway invested approximately Tk88,000 crore to construct 948km of new track across 121 projects. However, only 40 new locomotives were added while over 90 were decommissioned. A long-standing proposal to procure 70 locomotives sat stalled for 14 years before its ultimate cancellation in 2024.

Freight trains wait while locomotives move elsewhere

The railway's internal report found that of the 49 freight trains, at least 14 were delayed for more than 24 hours, while six were delayed for 48 hours or more.

More than 40% of the total delay time recorded in the report was caused by locomotives being removed from freight trains and assigned to passenger services. Other causes included locomotive breakdowns, emergency duties and mechanical faults, as well as freight trains being held up for passenger services.

The result is a vicious cycle.

Longer turnaround times mean locomotives and wagons remain tied up for longer, reducing the number of freight trips the railway can operate. That cuts revenue further and pushes more cargo onto roads.

A 20-wagon tanker loaded with fuel, for example, had to wait at CGPY from 20 August, awaiting a locomotive to take it to Sreemangal in Moulvibazar until the evening of 03 September. Another fuel train has been stranded at the Sylhet depot since 17 August because of the locomotive shortage.

Fuel is moving from rail to road

The decline is particularly stark in petroleum transportation.

In FY2021-22, Bangladesh Railway operated 588 fuel trains carrying 23,004 tanker loads. By FY26, that had fallen to just 122 trains carrying 7,480 tankers — a drop of around 80% in the number of fuel trains.

Yet, demand for rail-based fuel transportation remains significant. The fuel division estimates a requirement for around 30 fuel trains a month to Sylhet depot, 12 to Sreemangal, 10 to Rangpur and six to Dhaka Cantonment.

"The transportation of fuel oil by rail is safe and economical. Because of the locomotive shortage, we cannot provide enough trains, so we are unable to deliver fuel to the northern region on time," said Monir Hossain Chowdhury, joint secretary and spokesman for the Energy Division.

"Transporting it by road increases both costs and risks. We have held several meetings with the railway, but they have not been able to provide the trains," he told TBS.

Costs doubling for businesses

The shift to roads therefore carries a double cost: businesses pay more for transport, while the country loses one of its safer and more fuel-efficient options for moving bulk commodities.

The structural weakness is reflected in freight's shrinking contribution to the railway.

Freight trips have nearly halved in five years, while revenue from the segment has also fallen sharply. The average daily allocation of locomotives to freight has collapsed by around 68% from the FY22 peak of 11.68 to just 3.14 in FY26.

Chattogram Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Mohammad Amirul Haque said the railway's problems are ultimately increasing the cost of doing business.

"The railway is still operating with a system inherited from the British period. There is no planning. There are shortages of manpower and rolling stock. Business costs are rising," he told TBS.

'Imbalanced system'

As BUET transport expert Professor Shamsul Hoque noted, expanding track capacity without procuring rolling stock has created an imbalanced system. Until new locomotives arrive, businesses must choose between cheaper rail transport that risks unexpected week-long delays and costlier trucks that deliver on time.

"The development plans of the railway have failed to produce any real results because of unplanned investment," he said.

"Railway authorities used to talk about the usefulness of new projects. But they knew that even with new tracks, trains could not be operated because of shortages of coaches and locomotives," he told TBS.

A cheaper railway that businesses cannot depend on

Bangladesh's freight market is therefore caught in a paradox.

Rail is potentially cheaper for moving large volumes over long distances, and the railway already has connections to Chattogram port, the Kamalapur ICD, fuel depots, power plants, grain storage facilities and industrial centres.

But a shortage of locomotives, ageing equipment and unpredictable scheduling are making that cost advantage increasingly irrelevant.

For businesses, the choice is therefore no longer simply between a cheaper train and a more expensive truck. It is between a train that may cost less but cannot be relied upon to arrive, and a truck that costs more but can usually be booked when needed.