India’s First Ever Made-In-India Engineless Train on a Trial Run within a Week

This is going to be the first ever engineless India made train that has been wholly conceptualised, designed and manufactured in India. By look, one can mistake this train as a bullet train as well and the good news is that the first set of this will be on a trail run in a week’s time.

Sudhanshu Mani, General Manager of Integral Coach Factory (ICF) says that the train set is a rake which is self-propelled and it does not need a locomotive. The train, named as Train-18, is said to be designed and manufactured at a cost of Rs 100 crore. This is just the first set and the second rake would be ready by March and as expected by the manufacturer, the costs for the second set will be less.

The train is built for a quick intra-day travel on the routes of the Shatabdi Express routes and this sixteen-coach train might run between Delhi-Bhopal, Chennai-Bengaluru and Mumbai-Ahmedabad stations. The best [part is that this new train is built with the latest amenities and is capable of cutting down on travel time by 10-15%. It has better acceleration in comparison to the conventional trains as it has 50% more power. Moreover, it is equipped with a smart braking system consisting of regenerative and electro-pneumatic braking imported from Hungary.

Mani added, “This is one of the most ambitious Make in India concepts. By developing it completely in India, we have saved on the cost of technology transfer from a foreign country that is usually the norm.”

Speaking about this made-in-India train, he added that an imported rake of similar characteristics would have cost Rs 170 crore. He also stated that established private companies in India would have taken at least 36 months for manufacturing a similar product.

Some of the nameable features of the train are that there are two executive class coaches in the centre of the train and the seats of these coaches can rotate by 360 degrees. This gives the passengers an option to enjoy a straight-on view of the scenery. These specially designed seats are air-lifted from Spain. Along with the seats, the braking system and transformers are also imported from Spain.

Another completely new thing to mentions about this train is that the passengers of the train will be capable of knocking on the doors of the driver.

Officials say that the train’s speed test would be conducted on the Moradabad- -Bareilly and Kota-Sawai Madhopur stretch next month.