Railways procure GE manufactured diesel electric locomotives

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

“Pakistan Railways has embarked upon an ambitious plan aimed at strengthening its freight transportation service and has purchased 55 diesel electric locomotives, each of 4000 to 4500 horse power, for the purpose,” Mohammad Javed Anwar, General Manager (Operations), Pakistan Railway, disclosed.

Talking to journalists on the occasion of delivery of seven of the 55 engines at Karachi Port, he said these freight specific locomotives, manufactured by General Electric (GE), USA, will be particularly utilized for coal and freight transportation. 

About the seven locomotives, the GM (Operations) revealed that these will carry coal from Karachi port to coal power plants in the up country. These will soon be carrying coal to Sahiwal power plant. 

To another question, he said that an agreement worth US$ 213,689 million had been signed with GE to procure these locomotives for phase wise delivery to Pakistan Railways. The supply of the remaining 48 diesel electric engines, he said, will be completed in next six months and utilized with high capacity wagons and coal hopper wagons. 

"A two-fold increase in the Pakistan Railways freight earning is expected through the fresh induction," Javed Anwar stated. 

Supplementing his claim, the Railways functionary said that the newly purchased locomotives have the capacity to haul 3400 tons load against the hauling capacity of 2250 tons of existing engines. 

He informed that these engines are five percent fuel efficient besides being environment friendly and have less maintenance cost. 

To yet another query, he said that Pakistan Railways was also in process to procure a few more DE locomotives of 2000 horse power from General Electric. These engines, he added, will be used to transport goods from Karachi to Quetta and Quetta to Karachi. 

Mentioning that 77 relevant employees of Pakistan Railways were sent to USA for required training in the operation of these engines and now they will serve as master trainers. 

The CEO of General Electric for Pakistan, Sarim Shaikh, shared that the agreement between his company and Pakistan Railway was signed in 2015 with delivery to be made in 16 months. 

The Divisional Superintendent Railways, Karachi Division, Engr Nisar Ahmed Memon also responded to media queries.