The Railways Ministry often uses its social media handles to share fascinating pictures of railway stations across India and keeps followers up to date with the developments happening in the railways. This time, the official X account of the Ministry of Railways shared a video of India's most powerful electric locomotive and called it the "Beast of Indian Railways".
Named 'Wag12B', these electric locomotives of 12,000 horsepower (HP) are the country's most powerful indigenous locomotives. These electric locos produced under the 'Make in India' programme allow heavy freight trains to haul 6,000 tonnes at a top speed of 120 kmph. They are twice as powerful, compared to its immediate predecessor WAG-9.
''Beast of Indian Railways:- Wag12B India's Most powerful Electric Locomotive,'' Ministry of Railways captioned the video on X. The 33-second clip shows the WAG-12B in action, highlighting its robust build, capabilities, and features.
Watch the video here:
Notably, the WAG 12B locomotive is installed with insulated gate bipolar transistors or IGBT-based propulsion technology and makes use of regenerative braking, which reduces the consumption of energy. The locomotives remanufactured with a Bo-Bo design having 22.5 tonnes of axle load, which is upgradable to 25 tonnes. They are expected to increase the average speed of freight trains in the country by at least 20-25 kmph.
These locomotives help to decongest the saturated tracks by improving the average speed and the loading capacity of freight trains operating on the network.
Reacting to the video, one user wrote, ''Power on the tracks Introducing the Beast of Indian Railways, Wag12B - India's most powerful Electric Locomotive. A true engineering marvel and a leap forward in rail technology.''
Another commented, ''Wow! Where's this deployed? Are there tracks with overhead cables at a different heights? Also with extra load bearing capacity?'' A third said, ''Had never seen Indian Railways carrying containers like this. Amazing!!''
The locomotives can be tracked through GPS for strategic use through embedded software and Antennae are lifted through the servers on the ground through a microwave link.
