Chennai: The Integral Coach Factory (ICF) today rolled out Indian Railways’ first ever Self Propelled Inspection Car (SPIC) from ICF Furnishing Division by a senior ICF employee in the presence of other officials.
According to ICF, maintenance engineers of railways regularly carry out inspection works at places like tracks, level-crossings and stations. So, they make use of an inspection coach which is hauled by diesel or by an electric locomotive.
As a separate locomotive is used for such inspection purposes, it becomes expensive to conduct the maintenance work. Sources also noted that during maintenance, the locomotives undergo ETR (Engine Turn Round). In Railway parlance, it means that the locomotive has to be detached from one end and coupled to the coaches yet again from the other end for the return journey. Such a method are high expensive and moreover, they are time-consuming.
To curb this issue, the engineers at ICF came up with SPIC. As the name suggests, SPIC is self-propelled, meaning that it is powered by diesel-electric power pack which is placed in the under-slung of the car. Thereby it effectively eliminates the need for using a separate locomotive coach.
Senior officials from ICF revealed that the SPIC prototype has been manufactured at an approximate cost of Rs 4.5 crore.
| Features |
| * Stainless steel body coach with an aerodynamically designed driving cars in the end. * Coaches are fully air-conditioned including the driving cars. * Has a seating capacity for 32 persons. * CCTV cameras and LED display on the driver’s car. * Onboard Wi-fi. * Vacuum-assisted bio-toilet. * LED lightings. * GPS based passenger information system. * 340 HP underslung diesel-electric power pack for propulsion. * 40 KVA underslung DA set for air conditioning and for powering the light and fans. |