Are India's Railway engines indigenous?

[IND151]

Thanks to CLW, Indian Railways became self sufficient in locomotives pretty fast. We took the easy route of buying technology and design from foreign manufacturers and then tweaking them to be best suited for Indian operations. The first few locomotives were initially imported with technology transfer and were then mass produced in India, which were then later tweaked internally to produce more power etc. while looks remained the same. This trial-and-error process for finding the perfect locomotive is why we have so many loco classes and variants, many of which have only miniscule number of units produced. Out of the 100 or so total locomotive types of the Indian Railways, only around 20 types have more than 100 numbers of them produced, and 20 loco models have less than 10 units present. The most successful locomotives in India are the WP and WG Class (BG Steam), the WDM2, WDG3A, WDP4 and WDG4 (BG Diesel), the YDM4 (MG Diesel), WCAM2 (BG Dual Electric) and the WAM4, WAG5, WAP4, WAP5, WAP7, WDG9 (BG AC Electrics) and the WDS4B and WDS6 (BG Diesel Shunters). And of course, no discussion about Indian Locomotives will be complete without a mention of the Fairy Queen, the oldest working steam locomotive in the World!

Locomotives of the Indian Railways! | 24 Coaches

 

[anant_s]

Which company has indigenously produced a diesel engine and traction motors?

BHEL
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited

CLW
Welcome to CLW Official Website !

Crompton & Greaves.
CG Traction Motors / Alternators / Control Electrics. ( Industrial Systems )

Diesel Engines
http://www.dlw.indianrailways.gov.in/view_section.jsp?lang=0&id=0,295,329,389,391

http://www.bhelbpl.co.in/bplweb_new/products/em/image007.jpg

I've seen that motor, it is a 6,000 kW Water cooled asynchronous motor, built by BHEL Haridwar.

 

[Harisudan]

There is a difference between buying critical components and buying the entire product. You do recognize this right?

Give me a reference to your claim !!India is not buying the Entire product..Atleast not in terms of railways..

LOL! Everyone starts from nothing. If someone with the caliber of 'Sachin' plays like 'Ajay Jageda' then it is a serious cause of concern which is what India is doing. We're exporting our top class talent to countries like the USA on the one hand and importing high technology on the other. People like you will say we won 'x' gold medals in Common Wealth Games 2014. Isn't it commendable? NO. IT is NOT commendable. Just look at the performance of Sweden which won twice the number of gold medals and their population is only 5 million. We're a nation of 1.2 billion and we have NO excuses whatsoever to lag behind in any field. Your attitude is the real problem that India is facing. We're happy with very little while our competitors won't rest until they've conquered the world.

Sweden or Singapore or Korea doesn't have the problem of Diversity..We have diversity in almost everything..Framing laws for such diverse, ethnic group and ruling them under one roof is not at all easy..Strict rules cannot be enacted here..
Strict working procedures are not the way..India is one huge conglomerate..Uniting the groups and taking them to the common goal of progress..
Hence the growth cannot be as quick as you want it to be, but yet yes, the same India has been continuously doing well year after year in the international sporting events..
I'm not trying to justify the slow pace of growth..I'm telling that, we are doing far better in terms of social justice and growth..Both complementing each other in such a big and diverse democracy with so many issues, is not an easy thing..
We have a long way to go..But we are on the right trick..we should speed up R&D..

 

[Daedalus]

WDP-4B "Prateek" On a Trial Run

WDG 50001 Bheem With 5500HP (Diesel)

That is WDG-4D, The First Goods Dual Cab Diesel locomotive of indian railways none other than SBI (sabarmati) WDG4D # 12681 aka "VIJAY".

 

[Daedalus]

I think Because we can get it on soft loans from china.. Once we have money we should purchase it from India.

Came across a interesting fact while reading an article on PR

"Pakistan has one WDM2 locomotive (an Alco based 2650HP diesel locomotive) of IR as a war captive! In 1969, one WDM-2 locomotive of Indian Railways was appropriated by Pakistan and incorporated into Pakistan Railway's fleet. There are few details available about the circumstances of the appropriation, and the road number of the locomotive assigned by IR is not known, although it is thought to be from a batch erected by DLW-Varanasi in 1965. PR initially assigned it a road number of 3770, but it was later renumbered to 4621 to fit into the ALU26 loco series since the WDM-2 is an Alco DL-560 model. As late as 2000, the loco is said to have been active and based at Rawalpindi shed. The locomotive was nicknamed 'Indira Gandhi' by Pakistan Railways. So, in case a war breaks out between India and Pakistan, the number of prisoners with upgraded technology will rise to 51. On the other hand, during the India-Pakistan war of 1971, a locomotive from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which had arrived at Howrah was detained and never returned after the war ended. It is located now at Bandel, although it has never been operated since its appropriation."

Active for almost 35 years, I wonder were the PR got spares for this loco.

My Experiments With Indian Railways: Santulan Mahanta: Train to Pakistan sequel: Locomotives to Pakistan

 

[harpoon]

I saw in a documentary about Ghan Express in Australia, the locomotive has an alert button which goes of every 90 seconds or so and the driver has to push a switch to turn it off otherwise the locomotive will come to a halt by itself. Does IR locomotives also come with that safety feature. Also are the driver cabins airconditioned.

 

[anant_s]

I saw in a documentary about Ghan Express in Australia, the locomotive has an alert button which goes of every 90 seconds or so and the driver has to push a switch to turn it off otherwise the locomotive will come to a halt by itself. Does IR locomotives also come with that safety feature. Also are the driver cabins airconditioned.

It called a Dead man's paddle (or switch). It is installed to automatically bring the train to stop, in case driving staff is in some trouble. yes it is installed on all locos of IR too.

 

[The Headache]

The ALCOS were surely american but today's EMD GT46 MAC/PAC, WAP,WAM,WAG,WCAM,ACAG,WDM and WDS series are completely swadeshi.