Electric Loco Shed, Itarsi is a

motive power depot A motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or just "sheds". Facilit ...

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 (electricity), battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime mover (locomotive), ...

s of the

Indian Railways Indian Railways is a state-owned enterprise that is organised as a departmental undertaking of the Ministry of Railways (India), Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and operates India's national railway system. , it manages the fou ...

, located at Itarsi of the

West Central Railway zone The West Central Railway (abbreviated WCR), one of the 19 zones of the Indian Railways, came into existence on 1 April 2003. It is headquartered at Jabalpur. It was created by taking away two divisions namely Bhopal division and Jabalpur divi ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is one of the major Electric loco shed in West Central Railway of the three sheds, others being at Electric Loco Shed, Tuglakabad (TKD) and New Katni Jn (NKJ). As of 1 December 2022 there are 171 locomotives in the shed.

History

Steam locomotives used to exist at Itarsi until the late 1970s. After Central Railway (former, now under West Central Railways) set a deadline to eliminate all steam locomotive operations by 1990, a push was given towards establishing electric locomotion as the primary motive power, and the steam locomotive sheds were decommissioned. To meet the needs of exponentially increasing rail traffic on the new continuous broad-gauge lines from Central Madhya Pradesh to rest of India with the completion of gauge conversion, the Itarsi was selected by Indian Railways for a new electric locomotive shed. With the completion of Bhopal-Khandwa Electrification in the year 1990-1991, new electric locomotive shed was inaugurated in July 1991 with 15 Indian locomotive class WAG-2 which stayed until late 2000, when they were withdrawn from service. It later got a large fleet of WAM-4 locos from Electric Loco Shed, Ajni and WAG-5 from other sheds but later some of these were then moved to other sheds and now all WAM-4 are withdrawn from service/scrapped. All WAG-5 locos are either transferred to New Katni ELS, Katni DLS, Itarsi DLS or scrapped. New

WAP-7 The Indian locomotive class WAP-7 is a class of 25 kV AC electric locomotives that was developed in 1999 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW) for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), AC Current (A), Passenger traffic ...

locos were acquired in 2018. In November 2020, Itarsi ELS got its first

WAG-9 The Indian locomotive class WAG-9 is a class of 25 kV AC electric locomotives that was developed in 1995 by ABB for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), AC Current (A), Goods traffic (G), 9th generation (9) locomotiv ...

locomotive.

Operations

Being one of the three electric engine sheds in West Central Railway, various major and minor maintenance schedules of electric locomotives are carried out here. It has the sanctioned augmented capacity of 175 locomotives units. Beyond the sanctioned capacity, this shed houses a total of 171 engine units, including 19 WAP-4, 55

and 97

and the holding numbers are going to increase in the near future as new locos have been allotted by Railway board to ET shed. Like all locomotive sheds, ET does regular maintenance, overhaul and repair including painting and washing of locomotives. It handled prestigious trains like the Amarkantak Express, Rani Kamlapati-Jabalpur Janshatabdi Express, Humsafar Express and many more mail express and superfast trains. It formerly used to hold the largest fleet of WAP-4 locomotives all over the Indian Railways but now a major chunk of the WAP-4 locomotives has been transferred to other sheds.Transfer of WAP-4 locomotives of Itarsi
/ref> Itarsi based WAG-9 locomotives perform banking duties with fully loaded freight trains at Budni ghats.

Livery and markings

Itarsi ELS has its own logo and stencils. It is written on loco's body side as well as front & back side.

Locomotives

Former locomotives

References

{{Locomotives Sheds of India Itarsi Hoshangabad district 1991 establishments in Madhya Pradesh Rail transport in Madhya Pradesh