The rakes are assigned names in alphabetic sequence starting with a name that begins with an 'A' for the first formation out of a marshalling yard after 0100 hrs, along with a number. This designation can change if the rake is broken up at another yard and regrouped. Thus, freight trains have names such as 'Ahmedabad 10', or 'Bombay 21', or 'India 38'. The letters 'J' and 'U' are not used, so that there are 24 letters available, one for each hour of the day. The number following the alphabetic part of the name indicates the time (minutes past the top of the hour) when the train departed the yard; e.g., 'India 38' is a freight train that left the yard at 0938 hrs. Trains leaving between midnight and 0100 hrs use the letter 'Z'. The words used to signify the letters of the alphabet are not standardized; 'Z' could be...
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indicated by 'Zebra' or 'Zimbabwe'.
Some special freight trains are named differently (e.g. the Shalimar Special out of Mumbai (Wadi Bunder to Shalimar near Calcutta), or the 'Salt Cotours' freight (Wadi Bunder to Salt Cotours near Chennai)); these tend to be 'privileged' trains and they carry goods with guaranteed delivery schedules. The 'Ahmedabad Arrow' used to run between Bombay and Ahmedabad. Other such named freight trains (past and present) include the 'Green Arrow', 'Blue Flame', 'Red Star', 'Black Gold', and 'Green Bullet'.
Other special freight trains include the 'Freight Chief' and the 'Super Link Expresses'. CONCOR introduced several new dedicated timetabled container trains in 2000 (Shalimar - Chennai, Shalimar - Hyderabad, Cossipore - New Delhi) and 2001 (Cossipore - Haldia, for international container freight), with more planned (Shalimar - Mumbai, Shalimar - Nagpur).
Recently [12/00] special timetabled parcel trains have been introduced by SER. One is the 'Dakshin Parcel Express' between Calcutta and Chennai, and another is the 'Pashchim Parcel Express' between Calcutta and Mumbai. These run at 90-105km/h. The 'Millennium Parcel Express' is slated [5/01] to run between Chennai and New Delhi, and also perhaps Shalimar - Ahmedabad, Shalimar - Sanatnagar, Sanatnagar - Tughlakabad, and Turbhe (New Bombay) - Shalimar.