Century old Dahod railway workshop starts producing, exporting freight locos

Vadodara: The nearly century-old Dahod railway workshop will now start producing electric locomotives that will pull freight trains in the country as well as abroad.
The workshop is at present being used for overhauling various rolling stock of the Western Railways.
The foundation stone for the workshop, which will turn into a manufacturing unit, will be laid on Wednesday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The new facility is coming up at an investment of Rs 20,000 crore. The facility will manufacture 1,200 high horsepower electric locomotives for broad gauge for the Indian railways and the standard gauge for export. A technological partner for the manufacturing of the engines will be selected by a bidding process.
The 9,000 horsepower electric locomotives manufactured at the facility will be capable of higher haulage capacity and higher speed of freight trains. They will have a capacity of pulling 4,500tonnes cargo at a maximum speed of120kmph, sources said.
The unit is expected to generate around 10,000 new jobs including 3,500 direct and 7,000 indirect jobs. The foundation stone of the original workshop was laid in 1926 after the Lower Parel workshop of the then Bombay, Baroda and Central India (BBCI) Railway was finding it difficult to manage the large number of rolling stock coming its way. The construction of workshop was completed in 1931. Since then, it has undergone various changes both in work and infrastructure. The workshop currently performs periodic overhaul of wagons as well as MEMU and DEMU trains.
Besides the locomotive manufacturing facility, the PM will inaugurate development projects amounting to around Rs 2,000 crore at the Adivasi Maha Sammelan. Modi is scheduled to reach Dahod at around 3pm on Wednesday. Elaborate arrangements including those for security have been made for the visit.