On Wednesday, the senior officials of the Railways have confirmed that from October four lakh additional berths will be available to the railway passengers, thanks to the new technology that allows the power generation cars to be replaced with sleeper coaches.
At present, most of the trains have power cars that supply electricity to the coaches which are utilised in lighting, fan and air conditioning using the diesel generators.
Railways to offer additional 4 lakh berths per day by October with green technology
There are one or two power cars at the end of every train in every LHB rake where the electricity to be supplied to coaches is produced in a diesel generator.
Indian Railways is soon going to adopt a technology that is already being used worldwide called the “Head of Generation” (HOG). In the HOG the power supply is tapped from overhead power lines and distributed to train coaches. Currently, the power tapped from overhead tension wires through a piece of equipment known as a pantograph is used only to run the engines.
According to the officials, by October nearly 5,000 railway coaches will be equipped to run on the new technology and will be able to accept the power coming from the overhead cables via the engines. This new technology will not only help the railways in making way for more coaches after shedding the power car and will also help the national transporter by saving more than Rs 6,000 crores in fuel bill annually.
A power car needs 40 litres of diesel per hour per non-AC coach while an AC coach needs 65-70 litres of diesel per hour. Around three units of electricity are provided by one litre of diesel, so a non-AC coach uses around 120 units of electricity per hour.
The new system is eco-friendly and will not create any air or noise pollution. It will also reduce carbon emission by 700 MT per year per train.
As per the official, in the old system, trains like Shatabdi Express would have two power cars equipped with Diesel Alternators placed at either end of the rake. But with the move to the HOG system, there will be a need for only one power car that too will be for a standby purpose. Without increasing the length of the train, another passenger coach can replace the second power car. Once all Linke Hoffman Busch coaches are on this system, there will an increase of more than four lakh berths every day through this and thus additional revenue will be generated as well.