IRFCA Mailing List Archive
Messages 1621 - 1640
From: db2adm <db2adm@VNET.email
Subject: Railway News
Date: 04 Nov 1996 04:17:00 -0500
The Indian Express
Monday, November 4 1996
Joshi to open Chiplun-Ratnagiri rail section
CHIPLUN, November 3: The Konkan Railway Corporation will
commission the 76.22 km-long Chiplun-Ratnagiri section of the west
coast rail line on November 15.
Maharashtra Chief Minister, Manohar Joshi, will inaugurate this
section enabling operation of train services from Mumbai to
Ratnagiri, the KRC chairman and managing director, E Sreedharan,
told mediapersons here yesterday.
===========================
The Indian Express
Monday, November 4 1996
CR's cyclic time table
MUMBAI, November 3: Central Railway would soon introduce a cyclic
time table for its suburban section. According to a CR press
release, this would achieve the twin objectives of improving the
punctuality of the suburban services as well as reducing the
traffic load.
CR's Divisional Railway Manager Arun Dube said that the new time
table would have a fixed number of services on dedicated tracks
and would be helpful for the commuters.
===========================
From: S Pai <pai@apollo.email
Subject: Re: Questions???
Date: 04 Nov 1996 09:59:00 -0500
On 1996-11-2, at 08:16 (PST) Prakash Tendulkar wrote:
> WR had electrified suburban track between Churchgate and Virar that used
> 1500 V DC. When expansion of track electrification started, this 1500 V DC
> track was extended to a few kilometers north of Virar followed by a 'dead
> zone' of one structure. Electric locos lowered their DC pantographs
> before dead zone and raised AC pantographs after dead zone. This process
> worked fine for locos but is not necessarily suitable for EMUs.
Is it hard to produce an EMU that runs off 25 kV AC? I should have thought
that rather than extending the DC section they ought to shrink it and move the
AC section inward and gradually get rid of the DC system totally. Is there
some strong reason to keep the DC system in place? How long can they go on
extending the DC system, and to what end? Why not switch to AC throughout?
It should certainly be cheaper than maintaining DC distribution lines for
long distances.
-Satish
From: R. Anand <anand@watson.email
Subject: Re: Questions???
Date: 04 Nov 1996 10:51:00 -0500
In message <199611041559.KAA29495@mimsy.email write:
>
>On 1996-11-2, at 08:16 (PST) Prakash Tendulkar wrote:
>
>> WR had electrified suburban track between Churchgate and Virar that used
>> 1500 V DC. When expansion of track electrification started, this 1500 V DC
>> track was extended to a few kilometers north of Virar followed by a 'dead
>> zone' of one structure. Electric locos lowered their DC pantographs
>> before dead zone and raised AC pantographs after dead zone. This process
>> worked fine for locos but is not necessarily suitable for EMUs.
>
>Is it hard to produce an EMU that runs off 25 kV AC? I should have thought
>that rather than extending the DC section they ought to shrink it and move the
>AC section inward and gradually get rid of the DC system totally. Is there
>some strong reason to keep the DC system in place? How long can they go on
>extending the DC system, and to what end? Why not switch to AC throughout?
>It should certainly be cheaper than maintaining DC distribution lines for
>long distances.
All of the EMUs in the Madras area are 25 KV EMUs! They don't seem to have
any bulkier equipment than the DC EMUs in Bombay.
Anand
From: Kandaswami, Auroprem* <Kandaswami#m#_Auroprem*@msgate.email
Subject: Re: Sabotage suspected
Date: 04 Nov 1996 04:57:00 -0500
Durg, Nov 3 (UNI) South Eastern Railway General Manager A K Mitra today said he did not rule out the possibility of sabotage in the derailment of seven bogies of the Howrah-Mumbai Geetanjali express near Bilaspur early yesterday.
Twenty three people, including nine women, were injured when the train went off the tracks.
Mr Mitra, who arrived here to see tne four injured persons admitted to the Bhilai steel plant hospital, told uni here that some fish plates of railway track were found to have been removed at the site of the accident.
The Geetanjali express had met with an accident at the same place in 1993, he added.
He said the railway safety commissioner would inquire into the circumstances which led to the derailment.
A woman passenger, Maniben Baghela of Balaghat, who sustained serious injuries, was in a critical condition.
He said ex-gratia payment of Rs 5000 to those who are seriously injured and Rs 500 to the injured were being paid.
From: Kandaswami, Auroprem* <Kandaswami#m#_Auroprem*@msgate.email
Subject: Re: CR Derailment
Date: 04 Nov 1996 04:59:00 -0500
Gwalior, Nov 3 (UNI) Five people sustained minor injuries when five bogies of up Agra-Jhansi passenger train derailed near Central Railway`s Sank station today.
Railway sources said five bogies and engine derailed, leaving the traffic on the route disrupted. Trains from Delhi and Mumbai were being run through the down track.
Senior railway officials had reached the spot and traffic on up route was expected to be restored by tomorrow morning.
From: S Pai <pai@apollo.email
Subject: Re: Questions???
Date: 04 Nov 1996 11:47:00 -0500
On 1996-11-4, at 11:51 (-0500) R. Anand wrote:
> All of the EMUs in the Madras area are 25 KV EMUs!
I may be mistaken, but wasn't there a DC system around Madras once (3000V)?
Has that been dismantled?
-Satish
From: R. Anand <anand@watson.email
Subject: Re: Questions???
Date: 04 Nov 1996 11:53:00 -0500
In message <199611041747.MAA09774@mimsy.email write:
>
>On 1996-11-4, at 11:51 (-0500) R. Anand wrote:
>
>> All of the EMUs in the Madras area are 25 KV EMUs!
>
>I may be mistaken, but wasn't there a DC system around Madras once (3000V)?
>Has that been dismantled?
>
>-Satish
>
Actually, I may have been a bit too quick with that statement. All the BG EMUs are
AC but I'm not sure what the MG EMUs run on. I do remember it also to be AC but I
could be wrong there. Anyone know what is used in the MG electrified system?
Anand
From: db2adm <db2adm@VNET.email
Subject: DC EMUs on WR
Date: 04 Nov 1996 08:30:00 -0500
Satish,
> Is it hard to produce an EMU that runs off 25 kV AC?
No. On the contrary, the traction control on AC EMUs is easier to manufacture
and maintain than RPC (Resistance Power Control) in DC EMUs. RPCs get real
hot during peak hours and at times catch fires.
> rather than extending the DC section they ought to shrink it and move
> AC section inward and gradually get rid of the DC system totally.
Considering the volume of traffic, there is no likelihood of gradual change.
It has to be once for all the track or never. Total length of track is just
35 miles. (32 miles between Churchgate - Virar and 3 miles beyond Virar)
The newly laid overhead lines use insulators for 25 KV, even in DC section.
> Is there some strong reason to keep the DC system in place?
The overhead bridges between Bombay Central and Charni Road stations do not
have adequate clearance any more. This area was susceptible to flooding so
in early 70s, the bridges were raised and so were the tracks. The collector
cable runs 6" from bridge and the cantilever type support cable runs parallel
to it.
> How long can they go extending the DC system, and to what end?
They are not extending it any more. 3 miles extension beyond was done to
accommodate AC-DC locos. Due to short distance of DC travel for these locos
(28 miles of DC), it was not feasible to change the locos at Virar. Most are
changed at Bulsar with exception of Flying Rani (Surat), B'bay - Delhi
Delux 25 Dn (Vadodara) and Jammu-Tavi Express (Vadodara). Please note
that this info is based on my visit in 1985 and may have changed now.
> It should certainly be cheaper than maintaining DC distribution lines for
> long distances.
True. However, one interesting difference between WR and CR in distribution
of DC power. WR increased the # of substations by almost 100% in early 70s.
CR on the other hand, increased the capacity of existing substations and
added an extra conductor to ovehead lines to supply enough juice. Look at the
pictures (taken in Mumbai-Pune section) in Great Indian Locomotives Vol. 4.
Prakash
From: S Pai <pai@apollo.email
Subject: Re: DC EMUs on WR
Date: 04 Nov 1996 13:49:00 -0500
Prakash,
> > Is it hard to produce an EMU that runs off 25 kV AC?
>
> No. On the contrary, the traction control on AC EMUs is easier to manufacture
> and maintain than RPC (Resistance Power Control) in DC EMUs. RPCs get real
> hot during peak hours and at times catch fires.
So the question that arises is, what was the historical reason for setting up
the DC system? I'm guessing that in the days that the suburban system was
originally set up, it was hard to make AC motors whose speed could be
controlled easily (when there were no thyristor switches, etc.) whereas DC
motors can be controlled by a relatively simple resistive mechanism (even if
it difficult to manufacture as you say). Or was there some other reason for
preferring DC in those days? (Was AC generation not well-developed or not
very extensive, perhaps?)
-Satish
From: db2adm <db2adm@vnet.email
Subject: Why DC system was set up?
Date: 04 Nov 1996 11:39:00 -0500
Satish,
> So the question that arises is, what was the historical reason for setting up
> the DC system? I'm guessing that in the days that the suburban system was
> originally set up, it was hard to make AC motors whose speed could be
> controlled easily (when there were no thyristor switches, etc.) whereas DC
> motors can be controlled by a relatively simple resistive mechanism (even if
> it difficult to manufacture as you say). Or was there some other reason for
> preferring DC in those days? (Was AC generation not well-developed or not
> very extensive, perhaps?)
AC generation did exist those days. In fact, the substations did receive
11 KV supply (common those days) and used huge mercury vapor rectifiers to
convert it into 1500V DC.
The major reason to adopt DC was the torque characteristic of DC Series
motors. They offered greater torque at lower speed. They can withstand
current overload (of shorter duration) better than other types. In EMUs,
where combinations of series, series-parallel, parallel occur automatically,
it's not uncommon to see ammeter needle stuck at 1100 amps for a few seconds
(drawing >1100 amps) even though overload threshold is 1000 amps.
The decision for adopting 1500V was based on technology available to
manufacture insulators economically. Since Calcutta and Madras
Madras received electric traction later, they had 3000V DC system.
Prakash
From: sshankarnarayan <sshankarnarayan@kpmg.email
Subject: Re(2): Questions???
Date: 04 Nov 1996 17:59:00 -0500
Yup,
The Madras (Chennai!!!) MG Emus are also 25kV AC. There are currently 3 MG and
one BG 25kV lines due to the guage conversion effort.
-Sridhar
From: R. Anand <anand@watson.email
Subject: Re: DC EMUs on WR
Date: 05 Nov 1996 06:55:00 -0500
In message <199611041913.OAA14751@mimsy.email write:
>
>> Is there some strong reason to keep the DC system in place?
>
>The overhead bridges between Bombay Central and Charni Road stations do not
>have adequate clearance any more. This area was susceptible to flooding so
>in early 70s, the bridges were raised and so were the tracks. The collector
>cable runs 6" from bridge and the cantilever type support cable runs parallel
>to it.
>
Does 25 KV catenary require greater clearances than DC?
Anand
From: Kandaswami, Auroprem* <Kandaswami#m#_Auroprem*@msgate.email
Subject: Golden Package for Bihar: Paswan
Date: 05 Nov 1996 05:59:00 -0500
Patna Nov 4 (UNI) Union Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today announced a +golden package+ for Bihar,including developmental projects and welfare schemes for agriculturists, coolies and railway users.
At the end of his two-day visit to the state, Mr Paswan at a public meeting at Kursela in Katihar district today announced that the banana growers of north-eastern part of the state will be given concession in railway freights for booking their consignment from various rail heads.
He said abolition of contract system in railway sanitation works,about 3.5 lakh scavenging workers would now get direct employment opportunities in railways.
Inaugurating the doubling of the first phase of the Patna-Gaya railway line at the Patna railway station, Mr Paswan said the railway is considering to include railway coolies in the fourth grade of the railway department and the ministry was planning to provide them cent per cent rebate on the railway tickets.
Earlier, addressing a public meeting at Saharsa today, he said all the railway projects underway in the country would be completed within next five years.
From: db2adm <db2adm@VNET.email
Subject: Does 25 KV catenary require greater clearances than DC?
Date: 05 Nov 1996 10:28:00 -0500
Anand,
The insulators for 25 KV are taller than the ones used on 1500V. I'll see
if I can point to the right pictures in Great Indian Locos Part 4 that
may offer better view. Unfortunately, the book is at home so I can post
an append later this evening.
Prakash
From: db2adm <db2adm@VNET.email
Subject: Railway News
Date: 08 Nov 1996 04:31:00 -0500
The Indian Express
Friday, November 8 1996
WR `robbed' of speech in locals!
MUMBAI, November 7: Don't be surprised if the Western Railway's
suburban motormen and guards begin muttering to themselves. They
certainly won't be speaking to each other or their passengers,
since seven out of the 11 public address system units installed
nearly a month ago have been stolen.
These units were installed to facilitate communication between the
motormen and the guards, and also for updating passengers with
information about the journey and the schedule of the train.
Instead, they will end up facilitating the profits of thieves.
The units manufactured by city-based Motwane Limited consisted of
a dialing console, a microphone set, an amplifier and loud-
speakers connected in every bogie and cost approximately Rs 1.20
lakh per unit.
While the rail authorities were still in the process of installing
more such units on all its rakes by the end of the year, this
incident has sown doubt in their minds whether to go ahead with
it.
The units were stolen from rakes which were shunted near the main
railway stations of Borivli and Bandra among others. These places
ought to have adequate security arrangements as a 24-hour vigil is
maintained by the Railway Police force.
Sources added that when these rakes are shunted in areas near to
junctions and main railway stations at night, the first persons to
get on to them are the cab cleaners and the technical staff.
The cleaning work and mechanical checks are carried out under the
vigil of security guards till the wee hours before the rake sets
out on its first journey.
Unlike the Central Railway, which has similar set of tele-
communication systems but with a locking facility, the WR
administration did not provide such a system to prevent the theft
of its expensive equipment.
The thefts have brought this deficiency to the attention of the
railway authorities, and new units will be installed only after a
proper locking facility is provided along with them.
``Every unit has been provided with a tough panel situated in the
cabins under which the microphone is embedded. The entire panel
can either be opened with specific tools or can be opened by
bashing it heavily,'' Motwane Company Limited assistant manager
Rajiv Tina said. ``Even the switches which have been provided are
heavy duty ones and are usually used for industrial purposes,'' he
added.
According to Tina, each set consists of announcing consoles
installed in the motormen and the guards' cabins, amplifiers, and
a series of loudspeakers in all bogies.
The PA system also has the facility of playing music continuously
when the motormen or guards do not wish to communicate with the
passengers.
``The WR had placed orders for 35 sets and we had supplied them
with the quantity. Installations on 20 trains are over and the
rest will be over by the end of next month,'' he said.
Bhagwat Dahisarkar, Public Relations Officer of the Western
Railway claimed that the PA systems have been installed on five
rakes on experimental basis.
``Out of the sets installed on five rakes, three were damaged by
somebody who may have tried to steal them. The problem is not a
major one and can be taken care of by our technical team,'' he
stated.
Dahisarkar added that the system will be fully operational on 35
rakes in the next four to five months.
======================================
From: S Pai <pai@apollo.email
Subject: (forwarded) Indian Railways Webpage
Date: 11 Nov 1996 10:07:00 -0500
Anurag, could you please add Steven to the list if he is not already on it?
Also, you two should talk to see if there is some way to mirror the mailing
list's messages on the Web page (both ways).
-Satish
------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
From: Steven Brown <able@ricochet.email
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 23:07:10 -0800
Subject: Indian Railways Webpage
My preliminary web page is now available
<a href><A HREF="http://www.pressanykey.com/cs156/vmall/sbrown</a>">http://www.pressanykey.com/cs156/vmall/sbrown</a></A>
Later I want to add a system that will have the same effect as your
listserv for news.
Meanwhile what is the steam locomotive situation? I saw on TV some time
ago that IR was saving 2 WP locomotives for operation on the Palace on
Wheels. Have any WGs been saved? Are there any non-goverment
preservation efforts, or clubs? On my visit last year I saw no active
steam but meter-guage steam was still active in parts of the south.
Anyway let me know what you think about my page and what I should
change/add...
------- end -------
From: Jishnu Mukerji <jis@fpk.email
Subject: Re: Why DC system was set up?
Date: 11 Nov 1996 13:43:00 -0500
Excerpts from personal.IRFCA: 4-Nov-96 Why DC system was set up?
db2adm@vnet.email (1400)
> The major reason to adopt DC was the torque characteristic of DC Series
> motors. They offered greater torque at lower speed. They can withstand
> current overload (of shorter duration) better than other types. In EMUs,
> where combinations of series, series-parallel, parallel occur automatically,
> it's not uncommon to see ammeter needle stuck at 1100 amps for a few seconds
> (drawing >1100 amps) even though overload threshold is 1000 amps.
The other reason was the unavailability of cheap and small enough
rectifiers that could handle that kind of load. The post war AC
electrifications that took place around the world generally used engines
that had DC motors but AC catenary. The general technique was to use a
stepdown transformer with multiple changable taps for getting various
voltages at the output, Another technique for getting different voltage
AC from the line feed that did not involve mechanical tap changing is
Thyristor Choppers. These have been used in some recent locomotives in
India (I believe). The AC output at appropriate RMS voltage was then fed
into a rectifier to get DC to feed into DC motors. For rectification
early rectifiers were Mercury arc or ignitron rectifiers. These were
replaced by Silicon rectifiers with the advent of solid state power
technology. Most early AC electric locomotives and EMUs in India were of
this variety. It is only recently that some experimentation and
deployment of pure AC drive is starting to take place.
The development of control systems to actually run an induction motor
with variable frequency power input is relatively recent.
Incidentally, the pre-war AC eletrifications tended to be of lower than
standard frequency (50/60Hz) because in those the motors used were AC
motors and they had to be made to behave at low speeds. The Italians of
course even went so far as to do low frequency three phase
electrification with three catenary wires strung in strange fashoins
over the track.
> The decision for adopting 1500V was based on technology available to
> manufacture insulators economically. Since Calcutta and Madras
> Madras received electric traction later, they had 3000V DC system.
1500DC was the technology that was most prevalent in the part of the
world (parts of Europe) from where technology was imported for that
electrification. There of course were other parts of the world with
other types of electrification, even 11kV AC electrification at that
time! And the insulators worked fine for all of the various forms of
electrification.
Jishnu.
From: Jishnu Mukerji <jis@fpk.email
Subject: Re: DC EMUs on WR
Date: 11 Nov 1996 13:46:00 -0500
Excerpts from personal.IRFCA: 5-Nov-96 Re: DC EMUs on WR "R.
Anand"@watson.email (515)
> Does 25 KV catenary require greater clearances than DC?
25kV AC requires greater clearance than 1.5kV DC. If I remember
correctly 25kV AC requires an 11" air gap to prevent arcing.
Of course there are places where such clearance cannot be provided. In
those cases contact wire embedded in continuous insulating material is
used. The thickness of insulating material required is determined by the
characteristics of the material and is typically much less than 11".
Jishnu.
From: Jishnu Mukerji <jis@fpk.email
Subject: Re: Railway stuff
Date: 11 Nov 1996 13:50:00 -0500
Excerpts from personal.IRFCA: 6-Nov-96 Railway stuff db2adm@VNET.email (2989)
> Some of the interesting facts from this book.
> The first EMU was introduced on February 3, 1925 on CR (then GIP).
> VT station was being modified at that time so EMU's started from
> Wadi Bunder to Kurla.
> WR (then BBCI) inaugurated first EMU on January 5, 1928 at
> Mahalaxmi station. This train went to Andheri and returned back to
> Colaba station. The track between Colaba and Borivali was
> electrified.
Does it say in the book who were the manufacturers of these? Was it
Metro-Cammel or English-Electric or someone else?
Thanks.
Jishnu.
From: Kandaswami, Auroprem* <Kandaswami#m#_Auroprem*@msgate.email
Subject: Private investment in Rly. projects
Date: 11 Nov 1996 08:11:00 -0500
Private investors unwilling to takeup Rly projects
(Financial Express, November 11)
NEW DELHI, November 10: The much-talked about private investment in the capital-intensive sector of the Indian Railways has come a cropper.
The two schemes launched with big fanfare, `own your wagon scheme' and the build, operate, lease and transfer (BOLT) scheme launched in September 1992 and November 1994 respectively, have received very poor response. The private investors are not coming forward despite assurance of high return on their investments.
The objective of `own your wagon scheme' was to ultimately free the Railways from investing in the wagons to enable them to concentrate fully on development and maintenance of infrastructure for heavy haul traffic.
Under the scheme, the Railways provide 16 per cent leasing charge to the owners of wagons and at the same time, the owners get wagons for their requirements on top priority. However, so far only 5,000 wagons mainly from the public sector have been ordered.
Similarly, the BOLT scheme was designed to free the Railways considerably from investing in the acquisition of rolling stock, telecom as also to ensure vigorous and speedy expansion of railway network in hitherto backward and untouched areas and to spur private investment in the industrial and commercial activities in the hinterland of the new railway lines so that overall development could be accelerated.
The BOLT scheme envisaged attracting total investment of Rs 4900 crore from the private sector in the areas of electrification, acquisition of rolling stock like locomotives, wagons, rail buses, development and maintenance of telecom, gauge conversion etc. So far, only two gauge conversion projects have materialised which are under way though according to Railway Board sources, 23 projects under the
scheme are under various stages of consideration. But the unduly long time taken in finalising the contracts gives the impression that the response is poor.
It may be mentioned that the Railways have dispensed with the scheme of privatisation of ancillary work like cleanliness and maintenance of stations and trains, cloak room service, retiring rooms, and provision of bed rolls in mail and express trains.