Electric Loco Shed, Royapuram is a

motive power depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

performing locomotive maintenance and repair facility for

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...

s of the

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tot ...

, located at

Royapuram Royapuram is a locality in the northern part of the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is best known for its beach, and for Royapuram Railway Station. The station is the first railway station of south India, opening in 1856, and is today ...

on the

Chennai Beach Chennai Beach (formerly known as Madras Beach) (station code: MSB) is a railway terminus of the Southern Railway network in Parry's Corner, Chennai, India. Built on reclaimed land, the station serves the suburban services of the Chennai Suburb ...

–

Katpadi Katpadi () is a locality in Vellore, at the northern part of Vellore city in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Its railway is located on the gauge line between Chennai-Bangalore and Villupuram-Tirupati. Politics and geography Once a village, Katp ...

section of the

Chennai Suburban Railway The Chennai Suburban Railway is a commuter rail system in the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, operated by the Southern Railways branch of Indian Railways. It is the second largest suburban rail network in terms of route length and the third ...

network in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India. It is located in the Southern Railway zone and it is one of the three electric locomotive sheds of the Southern Railway, the others being at

Erode Erode () is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Erode is the seventh largest urban agglomeration in the state, after Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Tiruppur and Salem. It is also the administrative headquarters of the E ...

(ED) and

Arakkonam Arakkonam () is a railway town and suburb of Chennai within Chennai Metropolitan Area limit, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a population of 78,395 per the census 2011. It is in the newly created Ranipet district, about from Ranipet head ...

(AJJ) and is the newest in south India.

History

Route_haul_map_of_Royapuram_Electric_Loco_shed

Steam locomotive sheds used to exist at Royapuram (RPM) and Basin Bridge (for Madras) until the late 1970s. After Southern Railway set a deadline to eliminate all steam locomotive operations by 1985, a push was given towards establishing electric locomotion as the primary motive power, and the Steam locomotive shed was decommissioned. To meet the needs of exponentially increasing rail traffic on the new continuous broad-gauge lines from Chennai to Kanyakumari and Palakkad with the completion of gauge conversion, the steam shed site was selected by Indian railways for a new electric locomotive shed. But in 2006, the Southern Railway planned to lease a portion of the terminus to the corporate sector for developing cement and fertilizer depots. When this move was opposed, the railway allotted 155.5 million for

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

maintenance shed in 2007. The foundation stone for the electric loco shed, which will be the Southern Railway's third one after

and

, was laid on 25 January 2007. The loco shed was planned with an initial capacity of 50 locomotives, which would be augmented to 100 and then to 150 in phases with an investment of 450 million, and would have an inspection bay for undertaking scheduled inspections and lifting bay for undertaking both minor and major repairs. A service building for maintenance of various equipment of locomotives was planned, which will have testing and overhauling facilities. New Electric shed was inaugurated in 2010. Initially, the shed handed only

WAP-1 The Indian locomotive class WAP-1 is a class of 25 kV AC electric locomotives that was developed in 1980 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), AC Current (A), Passenger traffic (P) en ...

and

WAP-4 The Indian locomotive class WAP-4 is a class of 25 kV AC electric locomotives that was developed in 1993 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), AC Current (A), Passenger traffic (P) ...

class locomotives, but gradually were allocated WAP-7. The first loco to be homed at RPM was the WAP-1 '22000' which was also the first WAP-1 of India. Subsequently, more WAP-1s were transferred from Arakkonam and then the shed started receiving WAP-4s from Erode. The shed got its first WAP-7 numbered '30319' in September 2012. The shed also received new WAP-4 from CLW. In 2016 all WAP-1 were transferred back to make way for the newly allocated WAP-7s and then in 2017 all WAP-4 were transferred back to Erode. By July 2018, Royapuram became a pure 3 Phase only Shed housing only WAP-7 locomotives. This shed have WAP-1 and WAP-4 locomotives but now WAP-1s are moved to Arrakonam shed and WAP-4s are moved to Erode shed.

Operations

*Being one of the three electric engine sheds in Southern Railway, various major and minor maintenance schedules of electric locomotives are carried out here. It has the sanctioned capacity of 110 engine units. Beyond the operating capacity, this shed houses a total of 102 engine units, 102

WAP-7 The Indian locomotive class WAP-7 is a class of 25 Volt, kV Alternating current, AC Electric locomotive, electric locomotives that was developed in 1999 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW) for Indian Railways. The model name stands for 5 ft 6 ...

. Electric loco Shed, Royapuram housing the 3rd largest fleet of

in Indian Railways and it caters to many long-distance electric trains. Like all locomotive sheds, RPM does regular maintenance, overhaul and repair including painting and washing of locomotives. It not only attends to locomotives housed at RPM but to ones coming in from other sheds as well. It has four pit lines for loco repair. Locomotives of Royapuram ELS along with Erode and Arakkonam ELS were the regular links for all trains running through Kerala and Tamil Nadu when widespread electrification of railway lines started in Southern Railways. It handled prestigious trains like the

Kerala Express The 12625 / 12626 Kerala Superfast Express is a daily superfast express train of the Indian Railways that runs between and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala state. It is currently the longest-running daily Superfast train of Indian Railways (3027& ...

, and the

Tamil Nadu Express The 12621 / 12622 ''Tamil Nadu Express'' is a superfast train of the Indian Railways. Accidents Tamil Nadu Express has traditionally been accident-prone, with many accidents occurring due to its speed which when inaugurated had a top s ...

. RPM locomotives used to be predominantly the regular links for trains traveling to north as well.

Locomotive

References

External links

Website

maps of Indian Railway Loco Sheds

showing the Royapuram Electric Loco Shed
{{Locomotives Sheds of India *

2010 establishments in Tamil Nadu Rail transport in Chennai

History

Operations

Locomotive

See also

References

External links