FIRST OF ITS KIND: Member (Electrical) of Indian Railway Board Ramesh Chandra conducting the test run of a remote-controlled electrical loco engine in Vijayawada on Friday. PHOTO: RAJU. V.

VIJAYAWADA: Imagine a railway engine speeding ahead without a driver? Horrifying, right? But Vijayawada division of South Central Railway (SCR) has developed an electric loco engine fully operated by a remote control. The remote-controlled electrical railway engine was test run successfully for the first time in India and was demonstrated on the tracks of electric loco shed to Railway Board member (Electrical) Ramesh Chandra here on Friday.

Taking cue from the automatic engines run in international airports in foreign countries, Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer here K. Toria developed the remote-controlled engine. He used the industrial remote terminal unit (RTU) of German technology in association with a Visakhapatnam-based industrialist Maninder Singh, who supplies this technology.

When he proposed the idea of developing remote-controlled engine a couple of years ago, the idea was welcomed by the Chief Electrical Engineer of the SCR, who instantly gave the nod to go ahead with the project.

Advantages

The range of the remote control is 20 km. Whenever a goods train needs to have a second engine due to overload of bogies, it no longer requires another set of drivers. Particularly when the engine has to be hooked at the tail, drivers of both engines find it hard to synchronize the velocity by interacting through walkie-talkies. If a remote-controlled engine is placed, the speed and other operations can be controlled by one driver. This proves cost-effective to the railways also, says Mr. Toria. The member (Electrical) lauded the initiative of Mr. Toria and said that more research could go into the subject. As the engine was a cost-effective measure, it would be used for goods trains initially.

The use of the engine will, however, have to be approved by the Railway Board. Though the driver-less engine can be used even for regular passenger trains, this, railway officials say that it will not be allowed as passenger confidence and safety is of paramount importance.

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