Page 142 - Technology Roadmap Transportation

TECHNOLOGY VISION 2035

TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGH SPEED OPERATION

Design, development, testing and Data communication network between
manufacturing of high power, low loss, the locomotives and carriages in a
low weight, under-slung transformer, moving train and also with wayside.
preferably with aluminium tank, of
above 6-6.5MW power suitable for high Onboard infotainment. With mobile devices
frequency switching 4Q converter with taking prominent role in all aspects of life
harmonic control, hotel load and presently, making free (or chargeable) high
auxiliary windings. speed internet (wireless) in all the trains
would be needed. To start with, Indian
Propulsion converter with IGBT (or any Railways has planned to provide free Wi-Fi
other device which is likely to be to the select Shatabdi trains. Indian
released in future) giving highest railways have also announced a plan to
standards of power quality and near install wifi at 400 railway stations in
unity power factor at the pantograph. partnership with Google.

Traction motors with fully suspended arrange- Self diagnostics to enunciate unsafe
ment, both synchronous and asynchronous type conditions on real time to central server
of capacity of about 1.5MW (real time remote diagnostics), thereby to
the succeeding trains, like excessive
Torque transmission arrangement for vibrations, unsafe track conditions, fire
withstanding speed above 400 km/h, etc. as a proactive step.
with fully suspended traction motors.
State of the art maintenance tech-
High speed bogie and suspension niques and plant and machinery for
arrangement preventive, conditioned based and
breakdown maintenance of track,
Capability to model Panto-Catenary rolling stock, signalling and telecom-
interaction at high speeds, especially munication assets.
with multiple locomotives attached in a
train as a ‘train-set’ and evolve the Composite materials to keep weight
most optimum configuration to prevent under control
oscillations and current collection
problems at high speed. High speed pantographs

2.2 HEAVY AND LONG FREIGHT TRAIN through a radio link or a wired data connection.
OPERATIONS The long trains so formed are run under one
Some of the methods used for higher throughput signal path. Table 2.2 shows the maximum freight
of freight in railways include load carried by a single distributed power train in
• running longer and/or heavier trains, certain countries using this technology[12].
• having dedicated freight corridors,
• increasing the average speed of freight trains, and On the contrary, Indian Railways predominantly
• improving wagon turn-round at terminals, etc. operate trains with 58-wagon length, having train
load of around 5000 tonne. In the recent past,
Countries like Australia, USA, China and South it has started operating two trains together to
Africa use heavy haul, by use of distributed power, increase the load up to 118 wagons, by using voice
for phenomenally increasing the throughput with controls between drivers of the two connected
minimal infrastructural inputs and modifications trains. Indian Railways aims to achieve heavy haul
in the wagons. Distributed power operation with 200 wagons train with 32,000 tonne load, to
amounts to attaching many trains one after the be run with Radio Remote Control Equipment
other and all controlled by a master locomotive being developed indigenously[13]. The technology
having a single crew. The locomotives distributed gap is clearly visible from Table 2.2.
across the trains, are controlled by the master

140 RAILWAYS