Berger Paints bags award at Rail Analysis 4th Innovation & Excellence Summit 2023, New Delhi. Sanjay Chowdhury, Vice president & Business Head, and S Ravichandran, Chief manager (T&D), Berger Paints India – Protecton elucidate on the role of the company in ensuring durability of coaches in Indian Railways.

Railways are one of the major consumers of paints in the industry and they have always worked on setting higher standards by improving the bench mark of quality requirements. But again, we always remember the age-old synthetic enamel painting system (IS2074, IS110, IS 5083, IS 5862, IS 8662), that were adopted by all Railways Coach manufacturers for their exterior application of trains and the challenges faced for the environment in which it is placed was so challenging that Railways looked for alternatives and high performance products.

Berger-Protecton took the lead, and it was through ICF Chennai in the years 2002-03 that the first painting of epoxy-polyurethanes was undertaken as a trial on Jansatabdi coaches and observed for frequent inspections for a period of 18 months to evaluate and record the performance. Southern Railways had placed these coaches on regular run and those coaches with newer coating systems from various leading paint manufacturers were placed for comparative performance analysis. It is happy to recollect the final observation of coaches #2623 and 2707; it is clear that Berger's product was doing well in terms of corrosion free performance and the general gloss retention is satisfactory in comparison to others.

Berger-Protecton are the leaders in protective coating in India and we continue to strive and keep the honour of customers pride by ensuring corrosion free protection of their assets by constant interaction continued improvisation and enhancing with advanced protective coatings from R&D stage-manufacturing-supply-execution-inspection.

What factors contributed towards Berger to be a recipient of this prestigious award?
Berger Paints were recognised for the contribution to Indian Railway for providing innovative solution in the sector of cleaning, painting, and coating of coaches. The continued innovation and upgradation of painting system offered by Berger Paints, resulted in excellent performance in terms of durability and extended life which helped Railways in reduction of frequency of painting cycle resulting in sizable savings for the Indian Railways.

How is this coating solution unique?
The coating system currently used comes with low VOC which helped Railways to reduce the impact of solvent on environment. Berger-Protecton has coated many Rajdhani and other coaches in the last couple of years by adopting good painting practices as per international standards.

How long did Berger work with Railways to take this award?
Berger Paints with its presence in India for last hundred years have been patronised by railways for decades together. However, with the advancement of paint technologies, initiatives were taken by Berger-Protecton team with the ICF in early 2000. During the period from 2002 to 2004 sampling work was done at ICF for painting coaches with new coating system. Among various rail coach manufacturers ICF being the change innovator took up this proposal of Epoxy PU coating systems and issued a trial order to Berger Paints for two Janshatabdi coaches that were field tested for 2 years observing and monitoring the performance. This documentation and excellent comparative performance over four other competitors paved way to making it to the RDSO standards under the PPN series which is currently practiced for all new coaches and maintenance coaches painting.

What other new technology are you promoting with Railways currently?