New green tech cutting costs too, says South Central Railway

Secunderabad: Head on Generation (HOG), a state-of-the-art new technology that has been introduced recently in trains with LHB coaches and hauled by electric traction, is bringing in a transformational change in running of terms in terms of both financial savings (due to reduction in diesel consumption) and promoting environment (by reducing both air and noise pollution).

How it works

The power supply tapped from power lines through pantograph to the train engine is used to run the engine and haul the coaches. Now in this new system, power supply tapped from overhead to the train engine will be distributed to the trailing coaches for power needs. This new system does not require any diesel oil consumption and as such will reduce air pollution and also noise pollution. In addition, it also provides uninterrupted illumination in the coaches.

Charminar Express running between Hyderabad and Chennai Central has also been provided with HOG technology. Earlier, the train was running with traditional ICF coaches and electric traction power from end to end. Now the train is converted to run with LHB coaches paving the way for implementation of HOG technology.

With this in the first phase, all but two trains (totalling 10 trains) having total LHB coaches and running end-to-end with electric traction facility have been converted to HOG technology. In addition, one more train with LHB coaches (i.e., Rayalaseema Express) running partly in diesel section has also been converted into HOG within the electrified section.

Earlier, the fuel consumption for these 11 trains per annum was around 49.7 lakh litres incurring a cost of more than Rs 35 crores. Currently the electrical energy consumption cost for these trains is only Rs 5.7 crore per annum. Thus, the estimated savings for Railways on account of introduction of HOG in all these 11 trains comes to Rs 29.3 crores per annum.