To understand these locomotives, you have to have a handle in India, and Indian Railways
Forget any conceptions that North American readers may have of Railroad Companies
Indian Railways is a Government Department, run at the whim of the Minister for overtly political purpose, and personal and Party advantage
It is therefor grossly overstaffed, it is in the financial interest of line managers to increase their headcount, this enhances their status and renumeration
Needless to say it runs at a humungous loss, and is highly passenger centric
It exercises a total monopoly, and manufactures its own locomotives and rollingstock in house
So there are a number of ancillary mini empires, manufacturing, research, construction, civil engineering, consulting services, etc. Bit like the Soviet Railways in it's heyday
Indian Railways moves extremely slowly, and is totally risk averse in the best civil service tradition, total proof of the veracity of Parkinson's Law. In the case of the WDG5, RSDO had to re-invent the wheel, and has messed around with the design for years
RSDO's current projects
http://www.rdso.indianrailways.gov.in/u ... urrent.pdf
Extract from RSDO 2009/10 Annual Report
http://www.rdso.indianrailways.gov.in/u ... 0Power.pdf
Note that the WDG3A refered to in this extract is an ALCo
List of DLW's EMD license production
http://www.dlw.indianrailways.gov.in/vi ... =0,294,481
That is 735 Indian built EMD's, add that to the total built in Australia, and you can see why EMD survived in the lean years
Only the single WDG5 is listed
There were a number of WDG-5 photos on the IRFCA site, but these have been taken down
http://www.irfca.org/gallery/openline/wdg-5.JPG.html