New Siemens 9,000HP 75mph freight locomotive for Indian Railways

[jis]

Siemens received the largest single order ever for locomotives from Indian Railways for 1200 locomotives of 9,000 HP Co-Co capable of pulling 4,500 tonnes at 75mph. The deal includes maintenance for 35 years at four depots, Vishakhapatnam, Kharagpur, Raipur and Pune. They will be manufactured in India at Dahod. The contract is valued at Euro 3 Billion.

Indian Railways places $3 billion contract for new electric locos

Siemens Mobility are to deliver 1,200 electric locomotives for Indian Railways, the single largest locomotive order in the company's history.

www.globalrailwayreview.com

Interestingly, three of the four homing sheds are in what used to be Bengal Nagpur Railway before amalgamation following independence in 1947. Two of those sheds also homed the Garratt fleet of BNR which always was a heavy freight oriented operation.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

It is impressive how Indian Railways has upgraded and electrified a system that as recently as 40 years ago still had a large amount of steam propulsion. Contrast that with the US where we have actually reduced electrification mileage in the same time period.

 

[jis]

It is impressive how Indian Railways has upgraded and electrified a system that as recently as 40 years ago still had a large amount of steam propulsion. Contrast that with the US where we have actually reduced electrification mileage in the same time period.

It is more like 60 years for the 25kV electrification, which started in the late '50s/early '60s. And BTW, the electrification was motivated by freight, though as soon as whole trunk routes got electrified passenger traffic was converted to electric pretty rapidly. Many trains went straight from Steam to Electric.

Incidentally within that same time period they converted almost all of the Meter Gauge to Broad Gauge. A little less than half of Indian Railways was Meter Gauge at independence.

Incidentally, $3.5 Billion for 1,200 locomotives including maintenance is a pretty impressively low price IMHO.

 

[cirdan]

How much meter gauge is still left, and will it eventually all be converted or are there sections that are likely to remain long term?

 

[cirdan]

Incidentally, $3.5 Billion for 1,200 locomotives including maintenance is a pretty impressively low price IMHO.

Works out at about 3 million each, which is indeed very impressive. Maybe economies of scale help.

 

[jis]

How much meter gauge is still left, and will it eventually all be converted or are there sections that are likely to remain long term?

As of 2017 there was about 4,000km remaining, but most of it was under active conversion. Eventually IR plans to retain a little less than 1,000km of MG mostly for Heritage Tour operations through scenic areas.

Project Unigauge started in 1990 and proceeded to convert most of the MG to BG. In the Electrification projects no MG line was electrified. The line to be electrified was first converted to BG and then electrified. This included my old stomping grounds on what used to be the MG trunk line of Bikaner State Railway, and Rajputana and Malwa Railway connecting Delhi to Bikaner via Rewari and Loharu (my old stop). It is all BG and electrified now. Hard to believe when I saw it when I last visited Rajasthan a few years back.

Incidentally Delhi Cantonment to Rewari is also high catenary of ~26' to allow operation of double stack container trains of the Western Freight Corridor. If anyone tries to say that a line cannot be electrified because of train height, just tell them about India's electrified freight corridors.

 

[cirdan]

When we talk about conversion, does that really mean conversion or does it mean a new line is built using bits of the ROW of the old where suitable. I would imagine the MG can handle far tighter curves than the BG, so just widening the gauge might not be viable in all cases.

 

[jis]

When we talk about conversion, does that really mean conversion or does it mean a new line is built using bits of the ROW of the old where suitable. I would imagine the MG can handle far tighter curves than the BG, so just widening the gauge might not be viable in all cases.

It is conversion of a route that we talk about when the word "conversion" is used. Often that includes some new ROW and some reused ROW. In Rajasthan on the route I mentioned it was almost exclusive reuse of ROW, while in places like Assam between Haflong and Badarpur or through Shindawane Ghat (Pune - Miraj) in Maharashtra, it was mostly new ROW.

 

[west point]

Incidentally Delhi Cantonment to Rewari is also high catenary of ~26' to allow operation of double stack container trains of the Western Freight Corridor. If anyone tries to say that a line cannot be electrified because of train height, just tell them about India's electrified freight corridors.

Agree> The main item is more attention to cross levels of rails are maintained. As well the broad guage does move rails farther apart than standard guage. Have often wondered how the may Swiss Narrow guage routes keep the cross levels even to be so smooth.

 

[jis]

Agree> The main item is more attention to cross levels of rails are maintained. As well the broad guage does move rails farther apart than standard guage. Have often wondered how the may Swiss Narrow guage routes keep the cross levels even to be so smooth.

The cross level better be maintained within reasonably close tolerance unless you want your 24' high double stacks to topple over every so often.

Also, AFAICT the high Cat pantographs have a longer collection contact bar.