India inducts its first two General Electric power engine aiming for greater disaster management

NewsBharati    25-Feb-2018
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New Delhi, February 25: Under the public private partnership initiative, Indian Railway has inducted its first fully digitally enabled high horse power locomotive. This locomotive guarantees greater reliability, maintainability and availability manufactured in collaboration with General Electric.

 
The digitally enabled locomotive based on the state-of-the-art insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) technology, deals with combined advantages of high efficiency and fast switching. General Electric has handed over the symbolic reverser keys to Chairman of Railway Board, Ashwani Lohani, at a ceremony held at Northern Railway's Diesel Loco Shed in Lucknow as a gesture of inducting the two HHP locomotives into the Indian Railway system.

The two High Horse Power model locomotives are wholly designed in India under the 'Make in India' programme and manufactured under the PPP model through a memorandum of understanding with GE. The total investment amount is Rs13,000 crore and under the agreement Indian Railways has a 26% stake.

The engines have safety features including self load, toilet facility, upgraded computer-controlled braking (CCB system), electronic fuel injection system, fuel-efficient locomotive, IGBT-based traction technology and is compliant with India's UIC emission norm. The locomotive is also the first fully digitally-enabled locomotive with greater reliability and availability and is also provided with a device to manage disasters.

This production unit for the locomotive is spread over 9.15 hectares, with settlement facility with a total area of 200 acres. This factory will start loco manufacturing from October 2018. Locos will be maintained in Roza, UP and Gandhidham, Gujarat.

IGBT technology has a three-terminal power semiconductor device primarily used as an electronic switch, which was developed to give the combined advantages of high efficiency and fast switching. It offers greater power gain than the standard bipolar type transistor combined with the higher voltage operation and lower input losses.

Indian railways Locomotive General Electric