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CR Wracked by breakdowns

Ill-equipped sheds hit electric locomotive maintenance

(Mid-Day, Pune, January 21, 1999)

Ill-equipped Central Railway loco-sheds with untrained maintenance staff, led to 104 electric locomotive breakdowns between August and November 1998, resulting in passenger and goods train delays.

Investigations by Pune Mid-Day revealed that 61 of those breakdowns involved WCAM/3, Bharat Heavy Electrical (BHEL) electric locomotives, which were introduced in 1994.

Twenty-nine breakdowns were due to static inverter failures and 16 due to internal mechanism failures.

All the breakdowns involve trains starting from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), Kurla Terminus or Pune.

The high rate of breakdowns is due to untrained electric locomotive maintenance staff, railways sources said. They feel that fitters and helpers in most prominent locomotive sheds in Western India have not been systematically trained. “Most helpers and fitters have had no formal training, except at the time of recruitment. There is no upgradation of skills along the way,” the sources said.

When the BHEL electric locomotives were introduced in 1994, no detailed training was given to fitters and helpers, or even supervisors, they claimed. This has put them at a major disadvantage with regard to that locomotive.

The other detrimental factor was not recruiting technically qualified staff as helpers for 15 years.

The static inverters in the locomotives, manufactured by BHEL in technical collaboration with Belgium, were failing due to frequent blowing of fuses.

Sources claimed that they did not have the technical competence to repair these static inverters on the spot. Drivers have been instructed to requisition a fresh locomotive in case of failures, resulting in delays to passenger and goods trains.

Delays have also been attributed to instructions that only engineers from the Kalyan shed should repair the BHEL engines.

The BHEL engines were being overworked since they did not have breaks between trips.

P Ponnuswamy, Chief Electrical Engineer, Central Railway, confirming the high number of breakdowns, said that these were due to the failure of static inverters in BHEL locomotives.”

According to him, the root cause was the overhead direct current traction lines, which are prone to high level fluctuations. Ponnuswamy said that the DC lines were restricted to the Mumbai-Pune and the Mumbai-Igatpuri sectors.

These were the only DC traction lines operative in India. These had been set up in 1925 by the British.

According to him, 53 BHEL locomotives were pressed into service four years back, as they work on both alternating current and direct current. This was done as there is a plan to convert the DC traction lines to AC traction, in a phased manner. Referring to the static inverters, Ponnuswamy said that they were extremely sensitive and trip whenever there is a drop in power, even for a micro-second.

Ponnuswamy said that his department had taken cognisance of the breakdown and a solution had been devised. The 3.3 kv capacitor in the static inverters is to be replaced by a 5.7 kv capacitor. “We are confident that the bigger capacitor will not allow the static inverter to trip in case of minor fluctuations,” Ponnuswamy said.

According to him, four locomotives had been fitted with the modified capacitor and work on all the BHEL electric locomotives would be carried out in six months. “We are confident that the breakdowns will be almost negligible by June 1999,” Ponnuswamy added. Ponnuswamy explained that the repair and maintenance of BHEL engines was controlled by the Kalyan locomotive shed because it had 1500 workers and had the best facilities. He also mentioned that there was a BHEL technical team permanently stationed there. He confirmed that there had been no fresh recruitment in 10 years, since there has been no significant rise in the number of locomotives. He, however, did not agree that the technical staff in locomotive sheds was not well trained. On the Kalyan shed, he said that while it was not necessary to train all 1500 workers on the BHEL locomotives, specific groups of fitters and helpers had been trained on BHEL locomotives. Ponnuswamy said that the number of breakdowns was very high soon after induction of the locomotives, but has dropped significantly in recent times. “Initially fluctuations in DC lines had led to the failure of several units in the locomotive. Today, we have zeroed in down to the static inverter,” he said.

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