Rs 1.8 Bln Approve To Rehabilitate/purchase 300 Traction Motors For Railways

ISLAMABAD, Dec 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Dec, 2016 ) : Pakistan Railways (PR) would spend Rs 1.8 billion for reconstruction and purchase of 300 traction motors to improve the reliability and productivity of the existing fleet of locomotives.

The official sources in the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms informed here Monday, the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has already accorded approval to PC-1 of the project.

According to details, the PR owns a fleet of 409 Diesel Electric locomotives out of which 239 locomotives have outlived their normal economic life of 20 years and their average life is 35 years.

PR has 2,334 traction motors for working these 409 diesel electric locomotives. The normal life of a new traction motor is 12 years. Approximately 79% traction motors have outlived their economic life resulting in (a) lesser tractive effort available and (b) less reliability of locomotives and will be 100% overage by 2016-17, further aggravating the situation in case overaged traction motors are not replaced or rehabilitated on urgent basis.

The Railways requires an efficient and reliable locomotive fleet on sustainable basis to achieve its operation targets and to eliminate operational delays.

However, funds allocation for the routine maintenance of locomotives has been quite inadequate viz a viz the requirement.

As such it is not possible to maintain the locomotive fleet in optimum operational condition. The rehabilitation of these 300 traction motors will result in enhanced haulage capacity of 57 operational locomotive due to provision of full compliment of Traction Motors.

The improvement in availability and reliability will help to restore the freight traffic on the railway network which has been reduced for the past many months mainly on account of shortage of reliable locomotives.

The availability of reliable locomotives will help to improve train punctuality and will restore public confidence in railway transport. This will lead to improved financial health of the railway network.

The provision of rehabilitated traction motors of these locomotives will help to improve railways share in national freight market which will be beneficial both in terms of fuel efficiency as well as environmental degradation.

In the foregoing perspective, it is absolutely inevitable that locomotives are fitted with full compliment of traction motors as per design of the locomotive to achieve their optimum utilization.