Railway runs with rundown engines
Bangladesh Railway (BR) is trudging along because of its excessive reliance on outdated locomotives caused by the failure to add new engines to its fleet in time.
Poor planning, lengthy procurement process, contractors' failure to deliver shipments as promised, and lately the Covid-19 pandemic have left the BR with 67 percent of its locomotives overaged, experts and engineers pointed out.
As a result, the state-run transport agency is failing to live up to the expectations in terms of services and run trains on schedule. At the same time, its operational costs are going up, they said.
Currently, the BR has 263 locomotives in its fleet. Of them, 175 -- 67 percent of all the locomotives -- are overaged, according to the latest data.
Among the overaged locomotives, 78 locomotives are over 50 years old. Nine locomotives procured in 1953 are still in service.
The economic life of a locomotive is considered to be 20 years.
The BR has long been struggling to run its services with the outdated engines, but the situation deteriorated after more than 100 new trains were added to its fleet over the last decade. Train carriages and locomotives are procured separately.
The crisis became so acute that the BR had to seek help from the Indian Railway. The BR received 10 broad-gauge (BG) locomotives from India in July last year as gift.
The crisis is, however, likely to ease to some extent once 140 locomotives, which are in the BR pipeline, join the fleet within the next three years. Of them, 28 locomotives have already reached the country and 10 of them are expected to start operations next month, officials said.
Contacted, BR Director General Dhirendra Nath Mazumder admitted the problems regarding the outdated locomotives.
He said they have been servicing the locomotives to keep them usable.
Besides, they are collecting new locomotives under several projects to solve the problem, he added.
CURRENT SITUATION
Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan on Monday presided over a meeting at the Rail Bhaban over locomotive maintenance, spares availability, relevant problems, and their solutions.
At the meeting, BR's mechanical department revealed some latest data on BR locomotives, meeting sources said.
Among its 263 locomotives, including the 10 BG locomotives that the BR got from India, 171 are MG (metre-gauge) locomotives while 92 are BG locomotives.
Among the 171 MG locomotives, 132 are overaged, which is 77 percent of all the MG locomotives. Of the 132 engines, 61 locomotives are over 50 years old, 11 are over 40 years old, 34 are over 30 years old and 26 are over 20 years old.
Only 39 are below 20, show BR documents.
On the other hand, among the 92 BG locomotives, 43 are overaged, which is 47 percent of all the BG locomotives.
Of them, 17 are over 50 years old, 14 are over 40 years old, 12 are over 30 years old. Only 49 are below 20 years, show the documents.
Talking to The Daily Star, two senior mechanical engineers of BR spoke about different problems the state-run transport agency was facing with those locomotives.
Maintenance cost of the overaged locomotives are huge, as many of their spare parts are not available since those models have already phased out, one of the engineers said.
So they have to use locally-made parts, which are often not up to the mark, and thus such engines fail frequently, the engineer said, wishing not to be named.
It is difficult to operate trains on schedule with such locomotives, another engineer said.
PROBLEMS IN PIPELINE
As per BR documents, the agency will procure 140 locomotives -- 100 MG and 40 BG ones -- under ongoing projects. Besides, initiatives are underway to procure another 46 BG locomotives.
In March, 2019, the BR inked a deal with Hyundai Rotem Company to buy 20 new MG locomotives for Tk 674.09 crore. Under the deal, the locomotives were supposed to be delivered within 22 to 28 months.
The project was scheduled to end in June 2020. But 10 locomotives reached the country this year and it is expected that those will come into service from next month.
Ten more locomotives are awaiting shipment, Project Director Mohammad Hassan Mansur said yesterday, adding that the project deadline was extended till June 2022.
In January 14, 2019, the BR struck another deal with US-based Progress Rail for purchasing 40 new BG locomotives, which are supposed be delivered within 24-36 months, for Tk 1,123 crore.
On them, eight locomotives reached the country in March this year while the second batch will reach in December this year, Project Director Mizanur Rahman said.
Another BR official said it might take two to three months to complete the necessary procedures to add those to the BR the fleet.
The deadline for the project was June this year but as the project authorities could not compete the work within the timeframe, the deadline was extended up to December next year.
The government approved another project in 2011 to procure 70 MG locomotives. The BR signed a contract with Hyundai Rotem on October 10, 2018, involving Tk 1986.53 crore.
The company was supposed to supply all the engines within 18 to 60 months.
But the loan agreement has not been signed yet, making it difficult to maintain the latest deadline of June 2024. The project cost is now Tk 2659.33 crore.
Under another project, BR signed contract with Hyundai Rotem Company on May 17, 2018 to buy 10 MG diesel-electric locomotives at the cost of Tk 297.63 crore.
The company supplied the locomotives in September last year but two BR committee found four key components of the supplied locomotives did not match the specifications mentioned in the agreement.
It is not possible to say when those locomotives will come into service, said BR sources.
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