CHENNAI (Metro Rail News): Southern Railways and Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in India are constructing replicas of steam locomotives running on electricity.
According to The Times of India, it is anticipated that the replica, created by Southern Railway, will be completed in three to four months, with the shell already completed.
The locomotive will have a pantograph to gather power from the overhead cable. Additionally, based on the Vande Bharat design, ICF will soon begin designing a locomotive with a steam engine theme. Avadi EMU car shed fabricates a heritage engine based on the EMU platform.
Southern Railway divisional railway manager Ganesh quoted the news publication: “A major disadvantage of steam locomotives is that due to the capacity of coal, they can only travel at limited speed and distance.”
Southern Railway tested a commercial run of the locomotive a few years back, which has led to the decision to make new locomotives with a similar design to the steam locomotive EIR 21 from Egmore to Kodambakkam to allow the special heritage train to travel further and faster.
Additionally, in August last year, ICF announced their manufacturing of metro rail coaches for Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (Maha Metro) to execute the metro rail projects in Nagpur and Pune.
