South Central Railway move to reduce diesel consumption & carbon footprint

Secunderabad: A new technology, the Head On Generation (HOG) system, was introduced in Telangana Express on Wednesday for catering to the power needs of the coaches such as coach lighting and air conditioning.

Earlier, there were two power cars known as End On Generators (EOG) on both the ends of Telangana Express for providing lighting and air conditioning in the coaches. These power cars produce electricity by diesel generator for supplying to coaches. Each power car required 40 litres of diesel per hour per non-AC coach and around 65 to 70 litres of diesel per hour per coach in case of AC coach.

In order to lessen diesel consumption and carbon footprint, a state-of-the-art HOG system has been introduced. So far, the power supply tapped from power lines through pantograph to the train engine is used only 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.

This new system does not require any diesel oil consumption and as such will reduces air pollution and also noise pollution. In addition, it also provides uninterrupted illumination in the coaches. On an average it will reduce carbon emission by 700 MT per year per train in regular practice for a train provided with two power cars equipped with diesel alternator sets.

The average expenditure incurred on fuel consumption per trip per each train of Telangana Express is around Rs 2 lakh. Electrical energy consumption cost per trip per train in the new system is around Rs 78,000. The estimated savings for each trip of Telangana Express is approximately Rs 1.22 lakh and the overall estimated savings per year is around Rs. 1.35 crore.

All the existing Telangana Express trains will now run on Head On Generation System. Two more trains namely Train No. 22707/22708 Visakhapatnam- Tirupati- Visakhapatnam Express and Train No. 22705/22706Tirupati - Jammutawi -TirupatiHumsafar Express are also running with the new technology of Head on Generation system from South Central Railway.

Gajanan Mallya, General Manager, South Central Railway, appreciated the efforts of staff and officers of SCR on this achievement and advised them to extend the same for some more trains to adopt environment-friendly initiatives by reducing carbon foot prints and also fuel consumption measures.