300th Indian Primas Delivered

By late March 2023 Alstom has delivered 300 Prima locomotives to the Indian Railways. This marks a significant milestone in increasing the Indian Railways’ capabilities to haul heavy freight trains at high speed, to meet its ambitious targets. As part of its contract worth 3.5 billion EUR, Alstom is supplying 800 double-section Class WAG-12B locomotives wit a power of 9,000 kW, capable of hauling around 6,000 tonne rakes at a top speed of 120 km/h.

Marking the milestone delivery, the 300th Prima was flagged off from Alstom’s depot in Nagpur, which was inaugurated by the Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi in December of last year. This milestone was celebrated on 29 March 2023 in the presence of Shri Naresh Lalwani, General Manager, Central Railway, and senior officials from Alstom, along with other key dignitaries from Indian Railways.

Addressing the audience, Shri Naresh Lalwani, General Manager, Central Railway, said: “Indian Railways is undergoing a massive transformation in its freight operations and Alstom’s contribution in powering this revolution is commendable. The Joint Venture formed between Indian Railways and Alstom, to build India’s most powerful electric locomotives for freight service is a stellar example of a successful Public Private Partnership model, it will play a key role in accelerating the growth of the freight sector. The world-class facility built here, and the quality of products and services delivered by Alstom, are well aligned with the Government’s 'Make in India’, ‘Skill India’, and green mobility initiatives. This combined with the workplace culture nurtured by Alstom, will definitely set new benchmarks for our industry”.

As part of the contract, Alstom’s Nagpur depot will be maintaining 250 Class WAG12B machines starting from number 60251. This depot is equipped with the latest technologies and features to anticipate breakdowns thereby enabling proactive maintenance of India’s most advanced freight locomotives at significantly lower costs. The depot has 12 tracks for maintenance with hi-tech equipment. The depot is equipped with Centred Fleet monitoring (CFM) system to remotely monitor the fleet via Health hub and Train Tracer system. The Prompt Response Team (PRT) is deployed for 24 x 7 loco attention.

Green features like rainwater harvesting, zero discharge using effluent treatment plant and sewerage treatment plant, 100 % LED lights, daylight panels, occupancy sensors, greenery and provisioned for 1 MW rooftop solar plant. This is the second such facility set up by Alstom, after the depot at Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, which houses the first 250 Primas delivered to Indian Railways.

Nagpur depot completes 7 months+ of operations and records 1.6+ million service fault-free kilometres for the Nagpur fleet. The site is a success story for the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, where supervisors are from Alstom and technicians from Indian Railways.

The Class WAG-12B is being built at one of India’s largest integrated greenfield manufacturing facilities at Madhepura (Bihar), under a joint venture between Alstom and Indian Railways. This is the largest Foreign Direct Investment project in the Indian Railway sector. The facility has an installed production capacity of 120 locomotives per annum and Alstom has progressively achieved near 90 % indigenization. 

The WAG-12B locomotives made its inaugural run on the first fully operational sections of the Dedicated Freight Corridors two years ago. Some of the key commodities moved by these Primas include - coal, cement, food grains, fertilisers, petrochemical products, minerals, and posts/ parcels, across 17 States and two Union Territories.