The Hindu Business Line : SCR electric loco shed completes 10 years

THE Electric Loco Shed (ELS) at Lalaguda, which inherits the legacy of the century-old steam loco shed, has completed 10 years and achieved the accident-free tag.

It is an important landmark for the shed, which quickly transformed itself to take care of the changed needs of the Railways.

It now powers about 65 per cent of the mail, express and passenger trains, and 50 per cent of the goods trains that touch Secunderabad. This list includes 11 pairs of super-fast trains such as the Rajdhani Express, AP Express and Sampark Kranti Express.

The site where the ELS is located had originally housed a steam loco shed for 100 years up to 1992. The staff were retained and given necessary skills to handle electric locos.

No accident was attributed to defects on ELS-based locos all these 10 years, Mr Rajeev Kumar, Chief Electrical Engineer (Rolling Stock) of South Central Railway, told reporters at the shed on Wednesday.

The ELS was commissioned in September 1995.

In just five years, the cost of locomotive maintenance was steadily reduced to Rs 12.24 lakh during 2004-05 from Rs 16.73 lakh during 1999-2000.

The shed, which started off with 72 locos, now maintains 169 locos.

The total horsepower of the shed had increased 70 per cent in the last 10 years - 4,58,290 hp from 2,70,790 hp.

Efficiency levels too rose significantly. "Till 2001, an electric loco was required to revisit the shed for maintenance after working about 10,000 km. Thanks to the improved maintenance methodologies and technological inputs, a loco comes back to shed after running 30,000 km," Mr Kumar said.

"This results in increased availability of space at the shed and reduced maintenance cost," he said.

The recommendations of the Railway Safety Review Committee are being implemented, including introduction of air brakes in place of vacuum brakes, resulting in reduced braking distance.

The shed also installed microprocessor fault diagnostic system in about 71 locos to help the loco driver troubleshoot locomotive defects quickly.

The SCR has another electric loco shed at Vijayawada. "One more is coming up at Kazipet," Mr Kumar said.

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