Local sourcing to be major focus of Alstom’s Madhepura e-loco factory

Local sourcing of majority of components and tweaking the global design to suit India’s extreme climatic conditions mark Alstom’s first electric-locomotive project in the country to be set up at Madhepura in a joint venture with the Indian Railways.

The electric-locomotive factory is being set up as a part of project won by Alstom, to supply Indian Railways with 800-double section freight electric locomotives with associated long-term maintenance.

The project includes the setting up of a plant at Madhepura (Bihar) and two maintenance depots at Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra). The engines will be delivered to the Railways between 2018 and 2028.

The engine is made up of about 2,500 components, of which 85-90 per cent are sourced locally. The Madhepura project is a “multi-billion euro investment by Alstom and a proof of the firm’s commitment to the Make in India vision,” Bharat Salhotra, Vice-President-Sales and Business Development, Asia Pacific, Alstom, told BusinessLine. He further said that 85-90 per cent of the components for the first locomotive are being sourced from suppliers within the country.

Salhotra said that to have a seamless supply chain, the firm is building a symbiotic infrastructural environment at Madhepura that will make it easier for its local suppliers to come and set up their production units around the plant and to make India a strategic footprint for Alstom to cater to global markets as well.

Component suppliers include — transformers from ABB, couplers from Faiveley and brakes from Knorr Bremse. Alstom continues to look at opportunities to further increase the localisation aspect of the project.

The designing of the locomotive, Salhotra said has been done out of India in close collaboration with the firm's engineering headquarters in Paris. “WAG12, as the locomotive is known, is based on Alstom’s Prima range of locomotives. The design of the locomotive is highly adapted to the operational context of Indian Railways environment, specially to withstand the heat and humidity innate to India’s climate without compromising its performance or safety,” he added.

The company commenced production on schedule at its greenfield electric locomotive manufacturing facility in Madhepura in October and aims to deliver the first completed locomotive in February next.

“Alstom's testing facility in Saharanpur will also be ready by February. As per the contract, another testing and maintenance depot will come up in Nagpur. So we have the entire groundwork in place to push towards quicker and enhanced upgrade of the existing mainline infrastructure,” said Salhotra.

At 12,000 HP, it is one of the most powerful freight engines in the world and the most powerful yet in India. WAG 12 can run at up to 120 km per hour and move up to 9,000 tonnes of cargo.

After the delivery of the first engine in February, it will be tested at the Saharanpur depot. The engine supply plan will follow the plan originally agreed upon with the Indian Railways. The first prototype will be supplied in February 2018, followed by the second in 2019. Post testing, production will be increased to 35 in 2020, 60 in 2021 and 100 each year till 2029.

At present, Alstom India has a signalling and rolling stock engineering excellence, research and development at Bengaluru, a rolling stock manufacturing unit at Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, and a manufacturing unit for traction equipment at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

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