LAHORE: Cracks occurred in the underframes of 16 Chinese locomotives owing to deteriorating condition of the track, especially on some sectors of the Rawalpindi-Lahore route.

“Teething problems are normal on new locomotives,” a Chinese expert currently visiting Pakistan to ensure trouble-free operation of the locomotives procured from a firm of his country over a year ago told Dawn on Sunday.

Some 11 of these 16 locomotives had been cleared temporarily for freight operations. Six engineers specialising in welding would be reaching tonight or tomorrow morning, said the expert while seeking anonymity.

Chinese expert says engineers are visiting here to rectify the problem

Engineering specialists of CRRC Ziyang design and production departments came to Pakistan after award of the contract in order to survey and study the condition of the track on which the locomotives were to run.

“The locomotives were designed according to highest international standard of the dynamic factor while fully taking into consideration the conditions of the PR track at that time. Now arrangements are under way to bring required materials by air to Pakistan. Our six experts will arrive here and put these locomotives back on the track in the shortest possible time,” said the expert.

To a question, the expert said some PR engineers had some reservations about the Chinese locomotives. In order to address this, consultations were arranged between senior mechanical engineers of PR and the Chinese firm. “These engineers had 21 inspections of our design and production units in China to remove their doubts. Three batches of PR officers, each comprising 14 engineers, went to China and none had any doubt afterwards… they all returned satisfied,” said the expert.

Quoting from the Pakistan Railways (PR) official record, the expert said that the availability of the 29 locomotives of 2000 HP or ZCU-20 had been 98 per cent. Each locomotive had more than 200,000 kilometres average operation mileage.

“Since the first locomotive was put into service some one and a half years ago, the availability percentage of our locomotives has been at leading rate in railway operations worldwide. The average operation mileage of our locomotives has been much higher than any other fleet in PR. Our locomotives helped the PR save millions of rupees in the last one year according to its own statistics. In performance, our locomotives are comparable to any locomotive manufactured elsewhere in the world,” said the expert.

Meanwhile, a retired chief mechanical engineer of the PR told Dawn that during initial operation, problems did surface.

“Any new locomotive introduced for the first time in broad gauge network of the Pakistan Railways, where heat and dust become very prominent in summer, do get some teething troubles that need adjustments. There had been much more teething problems whenever new locomotives were introduced on the PR network; the General Motors (USA) and Hanshel (Germany) crankshaft was broken, for GE (USA) cylinder piston were burst and for Hitachi (Japan) locomotives bogies were bent out,” said the retired engineer while recalling that in 2008, there had been much hue and cry about the 69 locomotives supplied by a Chinese firm to the Pakistan Railway under an agreement signed in May 2001.

Most of the locomotives supplied earlier had successfully completed their warranty period as well as mileage and were providing a satisfactory service to the PR for almost six years.

“More than 70 per cent of the rail traffic -- both passenger and freight -- on the Karachi-Peshawar main line was being hauled by these 69 locomotives when objections were raised about Chinese locomotives,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2016