A World Record For Indian Railway, Converts Diesel Locomotive To An Electric One

Indian Railways has created a world¡¯s first by converting a diesel locomotive to an electric one. Indian Railways¡¯ production unit Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) in Varanasi has achieved this in a record time of 69 days. The conversion was done during the mid-life rehabilitation of the locomotive and apparently, it has also saved 50 percent of the cost to the railways.

A WDG3-class diesel locomotive was chosen for the conversion back in December 2017. Thereafter, trials of the converted electric locomotive began in February this year. The entire transformation led to an increase of output of the locomotive from 2600 HP to 5000 HP, i.e. 92 percent more than before. As per Indian Railways, such a conversion has never been performed in the entire world.

As per railway officials, the cost of conversion of the diesel locomotive to its electric counterpart comes out to be Rs 2.5 crore, while that of rehabilitating the engine is Rs 5-6 crore, leading to an overall saving of close to 50 percent.

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The locomotives have been used in a pack of two, delivering 10,000 HP combined, enough for a load of 5000 tonnes. As per reports, the electric locomotive made its maiden journey, carrying 5200 tonnes of freight on Dec 3 from Varanasi to Ludhiana at a maximum speed of 75 kmph.

Indian Railways believes that the conversion project is a big achievement, as it is able to bring down the operation cost of locomotives, along with other major benefits like drastically reducing the carbon footprint of the locomotives, while making them twice as efficient as before.