LAHORE: Pakistan Railways was planning to procure as many as 25 diesel-electric locomotives for various shunting points across the country which would help to replace outdated locomotives that to be soon be scrapped.
The project for the procurement and manufacturing of 25 shunting locomotives would be implemented in three years at an estimated cost of Rs. 14 billion, sources in the Ministry of Railways told state-owned APP.
Currently, they said that only 51 locomotives were being operated for this service against the 98 shunting points at various railway stations across the country. Additionally, most of the old locomotives would be discarded due to high maintenance costs.
They said the project was aimed at procuring and manufacturing 25 shunting diesel electric locomotives of 2000-2200 horsepower HP to replace the overage and uneconomical locomotives.
The sources said the role of specially designed shunting locomotives was considered the backbone of train formation and train rake replacement at the platform as well as the removal of train rakes from the platform to the washing line and sick lines.
It was pertinent to mention here that the federal government has allocated Rs 2300 million in the current Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) to repair about 100 diesel-electric locomotives.
RAILWAYS TO RECEIVE HIGH-SPEED PASSENGER COACHES BY DECEMBER
Earlier, it emerged that Pakistan Railways (PR) will receive first batch of 230 high-speed new passenger coaches from China in December. The coaches will have the capacity to run at the train’s speed of 160 kilometres per hour.
According to reports, the Chinese company has signed a contract with Pakistan to supply state-of-the-art, luxurious and comfortable coaches to revitalize long-distance passenger services.
