Eastern Railway in India Fully Electrified

[jis]

Indian Railways just announced that Eastern Railway headquartered in Kolkata (Fairley Place) is now 100% electrified. South Eastern Railway, also headquartered in Kolkata (Garden Reach) is apparently close behind with around a 100 km to go.

Indian Railways is shooting for 100% electrification of the entire system by December 2023.

https://www.financialexpress.com/in...complete-electrification-by-dec-2023/2191090/
There has been much speculation among the railfan community about how international service will be handled as Diesel Loco Sheds get converted to Electric Loco Sheds. Already most of them have been converted. All trains to Bangladesh normally used to change locos at the first station in Bangladesh, and to facilitate that they were diesel hauled in India. Freight trains progressively had their loco change moved to some border yard in India, where Bangladeshi diesel locos come and pick them up after they arrive there under electric power from within India and vice-versa. Post COVID when cross border passenger service commences it is more than likely that those trains will be electrically hauled to the Indian border stations (Gede, Petrapole (which was recently electrified), to be handed over to Bangladeshi diesel power there.

There will still be a number of diesel shunters around in places like the Howrah (ER), Sealdah (ER) and Santragacchi (SER) coaching yards to pull consists out of unelectrified yard tracks to staging tracks where the electric engine can power up and be on its way. That is until IR decides on some specific battery technology locomotive and in IR style mass manufactures and deploys them all over the country.

 

[MIrailfan]

Doing that here would cut pollution but be extremely expensive.

 

[railiner]

I think that India is doing the right thing, and perhaps they will assist neighboring countries with doing likewise? If not them, perhaps China will do so.
Just like more and more auto manufacturer's have committed to going "all-electric" in the near future (dates vary), perhaps railroads may also do so. Battery- electric yard switcher's would be a good start...

 

[jis]

My suspicion is that Bangladesh will probably start with electrifying the new link over the 6.15km long 42 span Padma River Bridge connecting Benapole on the Indian border close to Kolkata to Dhaka, after they are done building new routes that are already in the works in South Bangladesh. So that is a few years away. No matter who it is contracted to, it will be an international standard 25kV 50Hz system (most likely center-tapped 2x25kV as is the modern practice, anyway locomotives don't care about that detail).

Meanwhile India is extending its electrification to the two open border points with Pakistan at Munabao in Rajasthan (route of Jodhpur - Karachi Thar Express), and Attari between Amritsar and Lahore in Punjab (route of the Samjhauta Express).

Pakistan at one point did start 25kV electrification and did commission one short segment between Lahore and Khanewal on the Lahore - Karachi trunk, and then discontinued further expansion and finally decommissioned the electrification altogether. Pakistan Railways has always been in dire financial straits as they were originally advised by the US de-emphasizing rail. Recently things have turned around with Chinese aid, but of late things have been getting dicey on that front due to financial imperialism being attempted by China. So what will happen in Pakistan is hard to fathom. The Chinese Belt project construction is pretty much at a standstill within Pakistan.

Doing that here would cut pollution but be extremely expensive.

India's biggest motivation was saving foreign exchange. India has very little commercially extractable petroleum. It has huge coal reserves. This project started in the '60s when pollution was not as big an issue that people worried about. Most of today's electrification is powered by huge nuclear and thermal power stations.

Now there is a push for adding in solar and wind and not building any more thermal stations. But building of nuclear stations for base load will probably go on, since it is not a greenhouse gas producer, and India has had Breeder Reactors for reprocessing spent fuel into fuel for many decades, much to the chagrine of the US. Anyhow, electrification allows such a transition to take place rather transparently as far as rolling stock is concerned.