To induce more flexibility in operations and increase fuel savings the Indian Railways said on Wednesday that it is developing a new class of locomotives which will be capable of running on both electricity and diesel."A locomotive capable of running both on electricity as well as diesel is under development at the diesel locomotive works, Varanasi," said Hemant Kumar, member mechanical, Railway Board. "This locomotive will not only make operations more flexible thereby increasing the throughput, but will also result in saving of fuel," Kumar said while addressing a press briefing to list out new initiatives taken by the railways' mechanical directorate.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the railways is developing a prototype of a coach at Kapurthala's Rail Coach Factory (RCF) which can run at 200 km per hour and will be turned out this year.Besides, developing faster coaches, the railways is planning to introduce a condition based monitoring system for timely detection of technical glitches with the rolling stock."The system will consist of two sub-systems - on-board system and roadside system. The on-board system will detect abnormalities related to roller bearings, coach suspension and localised track and the roadside system will detect wheel defects, hanging parts, broken springs," Kumar said."It is planned to provide water level indicators in coach water tanks, so that filling can be done in time to avoid inconvenience to passengers. This will also reduce wastage of water while filling the tanks."