LAHORE, Feb 14: More than 46 per cent of the Pakistan Railways locomotives are lying out of order owing primarily to non-availability of spare parts, while inordinate delay in carrying out their maintenance has also been adding to the financial crunch being faced by the organisation.

Out of a fleet of 520 diesel electric locomotives, only 256 were operational on Monday, according to a report finalised at the railways headquarters in Lahore and will be dispatched to the ministry.

“Of the operational locomotives, as many as 146 are pulling passenger trains, 75 being used for shunting and departmental services while only 35 are hauling freight trains,” said the report.

The locomotive shortage became so acute recently that the railways had to suspended operation of certain passenger trains.

Besides, inordinate delay in carrying out repairs of non-functional locomotives resulted in a loss of over Rs4,616 million till July 30 last year, according to Special Audit Report on the Trains Operations of Pakistan Railways, 2009-10.

The Pakistan Railways has fixed periodic maintenance schedule for its locomotives according to which classified and nominated repairs should be completed in 32 and 24 days, respectively.

During scrutiny of the record of Central Diesel Locomotives (CDL) Workshop at Rawalpindi, a team of audit officers found that as many as 43 locomotives were held up for classified and nominated repairs from April 2004 to July 2010.

Similarly, some nine locomotives sent to the Pakistan Locomotive Factory at Risalpur were held up from January 2008 to July 2010.

Furthermore, use of overage and contaminated lubricants has contributed to the failure of so many locomotives, especially during the summer season, according to the report.

Meanwhile, a senior officer of railways mechanical wing told Dawn that of the 244 out-of-order locomotives, 140 (57 per cent) were of American origin, 51 (21 per cent) of Japanese origin, 44 (18 per cent) of Chinese origin and nine (4 per cent) of German origin.

He said some serious flaws in the diesel engine (GE 7FDL) of the latest model of the US-origin electric locomotive, AGE-30, had added to railways woes as out of the 30 such locomotives, only eight were functional while the crankshaft and power assembly parts of the rest had been damaged over the last one year. No less than 18 crankshafts of GE 7FDL engine had been damaged, rendering these locomotives out of service for about a year. Railways had invited tenders for procurement of 13 crankshafts for the GE 7FDL engine, but subsequently another five crankshafts broke down, he added. “The crankshaft is the most expensive and integral part of a diesel engine, having a value of about 20 per cent of its total cost. Each of the GE 7FDL crankshaft will cost railways around US$70,000 on freight on board (FOB) basis, according to exchange rate of February last year.

“Locomotives having DLOCO diesel engines of Chinese origin are also facing problems because of a lack of proper repairs and maintenance. Only 18 Chinese locomotives are operational as their diesel engines have not failed like the GE 7FDL engines. Of the 69 locomotive, the turbo chargers of 44 have failed. The out-of-order tally includes seven locomotives which were burnt in riots following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007,” the officer said.

Last month, he said, Railways invited Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for repairs of 200 locomotives from General Electric (GE), General Motors (GM) and Hitachi on public-private partnership basis. “Not a single firm has contacted the organisation to date in this regard,” the officer added.