Railways readies for WAG-12, India’s most powerful locomotive

Vadodara: Indian Railways’ crew readies to meet the challenges of WAG-12 — the country’s most powerful indigenously developed locomotive. Manufactured by the Madhepura Electric Loco Factory, Bihar, WAG-12 is the first ‘Made in India’ high-power locomotive with 12,000 horse-power (HP).
These locomotives are state-of-the-art insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) based three-phase drive.It is being developed in such a way that it can be deployed on dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) where they will be used to haul freight trains weighing more than 6,000 tonnes at speeds of 100 to 120 km per hour.
Through this, the average speed of freight trains will be double in the sector, while also helping decongest saturated tracks by improving average speed and loading capacity of freight trains. During a two-day training sessions organised for a total of 26 supervisors and 199 crew members including loco pilots and assistant loco pilots of Vadodara railway division, participants were given training on this new type of locomotive.
“One such high power WAG-12 arrived at Vadodara railway station on August 3. It was taken to trip inspection shed at Vadodara yard where training of crew and supervisors was carried out,” said Khemraj Meena, public relations officer of Vadodara railway division.
Unlike the existing locomotives, this locomotive has high voltage apparatus like the vacuum circuit breaker inside its body in a special cubicle. “The roof of the locomotive is almost empty except for the pantograph. ,” said an official.