Sanjeev Mittal, General Manager, Central Railway inspected the latest WAG-12 Locomotive at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus on 18.08.2020. On this occasion, S.P. Vavre, Principal Chief Electrical Engineer, D.K. Singh, Principal Chief Operations Manager, Shalabh Goel, Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai Division, Central Railway and other officials were present. GM Mittal was shown inside the locomotive and working of this high-powered twin section locomotive by S.P. Vavre.
Salient features of WAG 12B electric locomotive is as under:
· Highest powered locomotive that is running on Indian Railways
· Enable faster and safer movement of heavier freight trains
· Equipped with state-of-the-art Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) based propulsion technology
· Capable of working on tracks with conventional OHE lines as well as on high rise OHE lines.
· The electric loco makes use of low voltage cables as well as, it has LED lamps, making it a “green loco”. The locomotive can withstand India’s extreme heat and humidity as well.
· Lead to considerable savings in energy consumption due to regenerative braking.
· This project has a strong impetus on indigenous manufacturing under the ‘Make In India’ initiative.
· Will help to decongest the saturated tracks by improving average speed and loading capacity of freight trains.
· The locomotives are being built in India’s largest integrated greenfield manufacturing facility at Madhepura.
Central Railway’s strategic advantage of WAG-12B operation
In comparison to the 5500-tonne load capacity of WAG9/WAG7, it can haul 10000-tonne capacity and increase the average speed of goods traffic over predominantly graded sections over its undulated terrains. This will enable the reduction of the overall running time of goods trains.
