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Simulator training for train drivers from July 15 in Vijayawada

K.N. Murali Sankar

Looks like an electric locomotive and the driver feels he is driving one

- PHOTO: C.H.VIJAYA BHASKAR.

EXPERIENCING REALITY: The simulator at the Electric Traction Training Centre in Vijayawada.

VIJAYAWADA: How do train drivers undergo practical training? By driving a locomotive on a track specially laid for the purpose? No. They learn it by observing their seniors on regular tracks before actually getting behind the wheel. That is going to be history very soon.

The Indian Railways has launched specialised training on electric loco simulator for train drivers, to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge.

For the first time in south India (second in the country — the first one is in Vadodara), the Electric Traction Training Centre (ETTC) will impart training to assistant driver recruits on the state-of-the-art simulator here from July 15.

Vijayawada is the biggest railway junction in the southern peninsula.

Sophisticated locomotive

Fitted with computer-generated motion images, a man-machine interface, a host of computers and a video camera to capture the movements of the driver, the simulator looks like a sophisticated electric locomotive and makes a driver feel that he is actually driving a train on a specified route.

It is a simulated 75-km journey between Annavaram and Thadi (in Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam route) or Kazipet and Bhongiri (in Vijayawada-Secunderabd route).

Motion pictures in the monitor in front of the driving wheel change every second and the driver `experiences' a flurry of activity such as the passing of trains on the adjacent track and people and cattle crossing the track.

Special effects

Nine actuators fitted beneath the simulator provide the much-needed special effects such as jerks to the loco when it is crossing a bridge.

In a room next to the simulator, trainers monitor the performance of the driver through man-machine interface and test his abilities.

"A trainee will be tested in the simulator. At the end of each session, the driver gets a report on his performance. He can also see the recorded version of his driving," says B. Vivekananda, senior instructor of the ETTC, the first training centre in the country to get ISO: 9001-2000 certification.

"The simulator is the best thing to have happened to loco drivers, for not all drivers are equipped with the skills of driving a train under inhospitable climatic conditions," says B. Srinivas, a loco pilot in Vijayawada division.

Under the Simulators for Indian Railways (SIMIR) project, the Central Organisation for the Modernisation of Workshops has procured the equipment from France-based CORYS Company at a cost of Rs. 12 crores.

"We will train the new entrants for six days on the simulator and ask seniors to attend a two-day refresher course once in every three years," says G.V. Mallikarjuna Rao, senior divisional electrical engineer, who is also in-charge of the project.

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