Huge locomotive order by Indian Railways

[MEC407]

Bombardier, Siemens, GE, Alstom, and EMD will soon be fighting over a massive locomotive acquisition by Indian Railways: 4,281 electric locomotives, and 5,334 diesel locomotives. Kind of makes UP's 1,000-unit SD70M order look pitiful!

From The Economic Times:

By 2020, the Railways needs to procure 5,334 diesel locomotives and 4,281 electric locos, spending an estimated Rs 1,20,000 crore. Given that its production units are overburdened, the Railways has decided to procure locos through public private partnerships.

Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 198016.cms

[Allen Hazen]

From the article MEC 407 linked to:
"GE India has announced plans to set up a facility that will also manufacture diesel locomotives in Maharashtra with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore. "We are targeting India. We will participate in the tender to be floated soon by the Indian Railways for 1,000 electric locomotives. We are willing to offer 10% cheaper rates than other companies," Alstom's locomotive platform director Jean-Marc Tessier had said in an interview earlier in France. While EMD has been a long-standing technology partner for diesel locomotives with the Railways, Siemens too plans to cash in on the opportunity."

So Bombardier (which long ago established itself in the European market, and made Amtrak's Acelas)is going to bid for the electric locomotive part of the deal, but the company that invented the GG-1 seems to be interested only in diesels.

[JayBee]

So Bombardier (which long ago established itself in the European market, and made Amtrak's Acelas)is going to bid for the electric locomotive part of the deal, but the company that invented the GG-1 seems to be interested only in diesels.

And if Indian Railways asked for an example of GE's most recent electric locomotive to showcase their technology, GE would show the E60C. I don;t think that would be impressive.

[Allen Hazen]

JayBee--
Fair enough. The E60C seems closer, technologically, to diesel locomotive technology than to modern European electrics!
But a few years ago (4 maybe?) there was a press report(*) that someone in GETS had convinced management that they should at least THINK about straight electric locomotives again, not just surrender that side of the business to European (and/or Asian) companies without a struggle. I haven't seen anything since to suggest that GE has in fact pursued the idea.
---
(*) Got reported to the Railroad.net GE forum at the time: may still be findable in the archives there.

[Allen Hazen]

I've just skimmed through the archive at the GE forum, and can't find the thing about some GE person claiming to have persuaded management to reconsider straight electrics... But-- currently on the first page of the archive-- is a post entitled "GE wants to build 12,000hp locomotives in India": MEC 407 reporting a press story on 11 August 2011. At that time GE was one of a number of companies interested in setting up a joint venture in India to produce new straight electric locomotives, though the press story does mention that they were also interested in building diesels.

It may be reading too much into the spaces between the lines in the press stories, but it COULD be that GE has decided not to pursue the electric side of Indian Railways' business but to concentrate on its bid to be their diesel supplier. (Could also, of course, just be the reporters' decisions about what to emphasize.)