HomeCommercial VehiclesIndia's most powerful train engine makes 1st commercial run - Video

India’s most powerful train engine makes 1st commercial run – Video

Most powerful train engine in India
Most powerful train engine in India

This engine has been manufactured by Madhepura Electric Locomotive Pvt. Ltd. (MELPL) as a part of the Make in India initiative

The Indian Railways gets its most powerful 12,000 hp engine. Manufactured by French rolling stock manufacturer Alstom at the Madhepura Electric Locomotive Pvt. Ltd. (MELPL) in Bihar, this locomotive was put into operation from Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Jn Station (previously known as Mughalsarai) on Monday.

This launch makes India the 6th country to join the club of producing the high horsepower locomotive indigenously. Following this successful run, MELPL will now manufacture 800 units of 12000 HP Electric Freight Locomotives over the next 11 years.

The train, consisting of 11 wagons, departed from Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Jn Station on its maiden journey to Shivpur on Monday at 2.08 pm. It travelled along the East Central Railway line to Barwadih via Dehri-on-Sone Garhwa Road stations. This train with its powerful engine can take on heavy consignments of freight and will be used along with Dedicated Freight Corridor. Watch the video of the engine’s recent run, shared by Ministry of Indian Railways, below.

The locomotive is produced as a part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. The Medhepura plant is the largest Green Field factory and is built as per highest standards of quality and safety spread over an area of 250 acres. It has production capacity of 120 locomotives / train engine.

The locomotive has fully air conditioned drivers cabins on either ends, a well equipped regenerative braking system which offers substantial energy saving during operations and can be tracked via GPS through embedded software and antennae. The project will help to create over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country.

These high horsepower locomotives will help to decongest the saturated tracks by improving the average speed of freight trains. The Indian Railways has also entered into procurement cum management agreement with MELPL as part of largest foreign direct investment project. The project was initiated in 2018 when PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the project on 10th April 2018 after the first prototype was delivery in March 2018.

As a part of the agreement, following the first prototype, the company was to delivery four more locomotives in 2018, 35 locomotives in FY19-20 and 60 in FY 20-21 and thereon 100 each year till the completion of the 11 year delivery period. Alstom could not make timely deliveries after the initial prototype failed test trials twice and as per recovery plan was to supply 10 locomotives by March 2020. Alstom has confirmed that they have delivered 8 electric locomotives to date while the remaining two have been dispatched from the Medhepura facility.

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