Hyderabad: The South Central Railway (SCR) hauls moving stock with high-speed diesel locomotives on around 25 percent of its network, spending crores of rupees each month, despite the railways’ goal of electrifying all routes by 2024.
The SCR network spans 6,400 route kilometres in total. 4,900 route miles of this are electrified, whereas the remaining 1,500 route km, including 450 route km in Telangana, are not.
Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and a portion of Maharashtra and Karnataka are all included in the SCR. Mahbubnagar-Kurnool, Medchal-Dharmabad, Manoharabad-Gajwel, Devarkadra-Makthal, Mudkhed-Adilabad, and a few other routes still need to be electrified.
Diesel locos are used to pull trains such as the Nanded-Sambalpur Nagavali Express, the Nanded-Visakhapatnam Express, the Secunderabad-Manmad Ajanta Express, the Secunderabad-Mumbai Devagiri Express, and the Nizamabad-Tirupati Rayalaseema Express.
The functioning of the rolling stock requires SCR to use 16,500 kiloliters (1.65 lakh litres) of high-speed diesel each month, according to officials.
Before COVID-19, the zone relied on 23,600 kilogrammes of fuel per month, but in the past two years, 1,000 kilometres of routes have been electrified. 480 diesel locomotives are currently available from SCR to transport both passenger and freight trains.
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