From correspondents in West Bengal, India, 09:06 PM IST

The company’s high reach pantograph (current collection device) in place of conventional pantograph was fitted in two of their conventional electric locomotives to fulfil this. The new generation pantograph allows an increase in the height of the overhead wires (catenary height) from the standard 6 meters to 7.5 meters, the highest in the world and thereby setting a record. Such a device is suitable for locomotives to be used for running double-stack containers as envisaged in the upcoming dedicated freight corridors being implemented by Indian Railways. This will also enable Indian Railways to introduce double-decker passenger trains in high density suburban passenger route.

The pantographs have already been commissioned successfully after extensive test by Indian Railways. Stone India’s innovation makes Indian Railway achieve this unprecedented feat to become the only railway in the world to run a train under a 7.5-metre-high contact wire.

The new-design pantograph, developed completely in-house, has many other added features, such as twin catenary height of 6 & 7.5 meters, auto upward-force adjustment to improve effective current collection in adverse conditions, thereby enabling reduction in energy consumption and allowing trains to run at much higher speeds. The new design overcomes the traditional challenge of balancing a high-reach pantograph in double-stack container trains moving at a high speed in adverse wind conditions, hitherto faced by all global suppliers of pantographs.

Stone India Limited has not only successfully designed and developed the improved pantograph in a record time but did it completely indigenously using its own expertise and with its own R& D setup using cutting edge simulation tools. The patented new series named as “Omniversal Intelipanto™” has been supplied when other multinational companies failed to do so before commencement of the trial by Indian Railway in East Coast Railways which was witnessed by Japanese technical delegation.

The success of this design will not only help saving foreign currency but will benefit Indian Railways by enabling locomotives to run on electricity instead of costly diesel. Additionally this opens up the possibility of Indian Railways even running double-decker passenger trains in high density passenger routes through further increase of catenary height.

The company plans to adopt this design in all its pantograph and plans to export such pantographs to countries.

Source: Press Release Distribution via India PRwire