Earlier this year, the bidding process for choosing the technological partner for training the Railway Staff at Dahod was initiated by the Indian Railways. The firm chosen would be required to impart this training for the manufacturing of the 9000 HP locomotives. Besides, they would also be given the charge for the maintenance of the locomotives over the design life of 35 years at four depots, namely Raipur, Pune, Kharagpur, and. Vishakhapatnam. In addition, another important KPI for them would be ensuring 95% availability and 1,50,000 km of trouble-free operation of locomotives before any maloperation.
Recently, this bid concluded and Siemens was announced as the chosen technological partner for the same, by the Ministry of Railways. The contract, hence issued, estimates around Rs. 26000 Crore (about 3.2 Billion USD), excluding taxes, price variation, and other factors. The Dahod unit is expected to be all set for the manufacturing of these 9000 HP EFLs by Siemens in the next two years, while they deliver the proto-type locomotives for the same during this period.
Planned for use on Western DFC, these 9000 HP, high Horse Power locomotives would be instrumental in revolutionising Indian Rialways’s freight operations. These would be used for hauling container freight trains in double stack configuration of 4500 Tonnes at 75 kmph at 1 in 200 gradient, thus staggeringly improving the average speed of such trains to approximately 50-60 kmph, versus the present 20-25 kmph. Not only this, these futuristic IGBT-based propulsion technology-driven trains would help in increasing the throughput as well as add significantly to the existing line capacity.
