ON A ROLL: Workers giving the electrical engines a thorough overhaul at the electric loco shed. The workshop is celebrating its decennial celebrations.

HYDERABAD: The 120 tonne behemoths with their maze of valves, motors, control circuits and transformers and breathing astounding horsepower to haul all of 20 to 30 bogies and more get their regular overhaul here.

As many as 312 locomotives, each costing a staggering Rs. 5 crores and chugging through the length and breadth of the country, come visiting to the spacious stables at the South Central Railway's Electric loco shed in Lallaguda for periodic overhaul.

Premises upgraded

The electric loco shed, in the middle of its decennial celebrations, is steeped in history located as it is on the premises of the steam loco shed that was built way back in 1893. With the phasing out of the steam engines in the early 90s, the premises was upgraded to handle electric locomotives and opened in September 1995.

The Chief Electrical Engineer, Rolling Stock, SCR, Rajeev Kumar and Senior Division Electrical Engineer at the Lallaguda Electric Loco Shed, Vishnukanth told presspersons here on Tuesday that the electric locomotives till 2001 were required to make maintenance visits after working approximately 10,000 km. but thanks to consistent efforts to upgrade maintenance methodology and technological innovations the locos come for maintenance after every 30,000 km now.

"Even with reduced frequency of maintenance, the efficiency of the engines had increased manifold over the years and loco failures had come down drastically," they said.

Innovations

The innovations include introduction of aerodynamic design of the locomotive body and air brakes system to reduce braking distance, particularly on long caravan of 24 passenger coaches and 58 box coaches goods trains, microprocessor fault diagnostic system for quicker identification of defects and computer controlled static invertors to ensure uniform balance voltage for the functioning of the locos.

About 65 per cent of express trains and passenger trains and 50 per cent of the goods trains starting or passing through Secunderabad are powered by the Lallaguda Electric Loco Shed. They said the Lallaguda locos, including 11pairs of superfast trains, run throughout the country.

There are two electric loco sheds in the State, Lallaguda and Vijayawada, and a third is in the final stages of completion at Kazipet, they added.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail