113 locomotives added in railways fleet in four years

Most additions were made by overhauling existing locomotives at a cost of Rs13.4 billion

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways has added 113 locomotives to its fleet since 2013 after overhauling them completely, officials told APP on Thursday.

The move has led to smooth and efficient operations of passenger and freight services, they claimed.

“Dedicated efforts of Pakistan Railways management and increased spending on repairing and maintenance have ensured increased operational locomotives from 180 in May 2013 to 293 at present,” Railways officials said.



Pakistan Railways has a fleet of 448 diesel electric (DE) locomotives, out of which over 293 DE locomotives are operational, they added. The officials said that in 2013 only 74 locomotives (41 per cent) were on full complements ie six (06) traction motors, while remaining were with 2 to 4 traction motors and could not pull the requisite trailing load, resulting in 11 failures per working loco during the year. Regarding amount incurred on maintenance/repair of DE locomotives, the officials said that Rs13. 4 billion have been spent during the last five years.



The year-wise details showed that during 2011-12 Rs1.2 billion was spent on maintenance/repair of DE locomotives, Rs2.2 billion during 2012-13, Rs2.6 billion during 2013-14, Rs4.1 billion during 2014-15 and Rs3.1 billion in 2015-16.

The sources said it is evident that the expenditure on maintenance and repair of locomotives substantially increased during the last three years which is reflected in their increased availability and reliability. Replying to a question, the officials said 93 DE locomotives are under maintenance/heavy repairs presently and will become operational by June 2018.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2017.

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