The Hindu : New Delhi News : Now eco-friendly railway engines

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Tuesday, Jan 10, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Now eco-friendly railway engines

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: After acquiring the world's largest eco-friendly compressed natural gas-run bus fleet, the Capital is now gearing up to roll out another first: a locomotive that runs on the green CNG fuel. Northern Railway has already completed trial runs and is now awaiting the mandatory certificates from various government agencies to start commercial operations.

"After months of painstaking research and a series of trial runs at Shakurbasti locomotive shed in North-West Delhi, we are now finally ready with a CNG locomotive. We initially plan to run a four-coach set on local and suburban routes of Delhi as green fuel is only available in the Capital and also because we need to bring the locomotive to the maintenance shed every evening for routine maintenance," says Divisional Railway Manager (Delhi) Pradeep Kumar.

Stating that mandatory clearances were awaited from the Pune-based Explosives Research and Development Laboratory and the Railway Ministry's Research Designs and Standards Organisation in Lucknow before allowing commercial run, Mr. Kumar says: "The entire process might take a couple of months. Once we receive the requisite certificates from the two organisations, we will begin our commercial run. The new technology will show Indian Railways' prowess to the world."

Work on the ambitious project began in 2004, but soon ran into obstacles due to technical reasons. However, the engineers did not give up and resumed work on the project after a few months. "The engineers converted a diesel multiple unit into a CNG unit by making necessary technical changes in the locomotive," points out the DRM.

"CNG is a cost effective fuel and every converted diesel unit will help us save lakhs of rupees every year. Moreover, CNG is an environment-friendly fuel with lesser harmful emissions," Mr. Kumar claims. Also, it could prove to be a good and cheaper option for routes where electrification work has not been carried out. "In Delhi we are likely to get CNG from Indraprastha Gas Limited. But similar facility is not available in other cities. So this might hamper our efforts to introduce it in other regions. Moreover, CNG as a fuel has certain limitations with regard to engine performance and we are trying to improve on that," says Mr. Kumar.

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