Electric Loco Shed, Itarsi is a motive power depot performing locomotive maintenance and repair facility for electric locomotives of the Indian Railways, located at Itarsi of the West Central Railway zone in Madhya Pradesh, India. 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.[2][3][4]
  Location within Madhya Pradesh | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Location | Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh |
| Coordinates | 22°36′29″N 77°46′01″E / 22.608°N 77.767°E |
| Characteristics | |
| Owner | Indian Railways |
| Operator | West Central Railway zone |
| Depot code | ET |
| Type | Engine shed |
| Rolling stock | |
| History | |
| Opened | 1991[1] |
| Former rolling stock | |
History
editSteam locomotives used to exist at Itarsi until the late 1970s.[5][6] 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.[7] 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.[8]
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shed was inaugurated in July 1991 with 15 Indian locomotive class WAG-2 which stayed until late 2000, when they were withdrawn from service.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Loco Shed, Ajni and WAG-5 from other sheds but later some of these were then moved to other sheds and now all WAM-4 are withdrawn from service/scrapped.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 locos were acquired in 2018. In November 2020, Itarsi ELS got its first WAG-9 locomotive.[9][10]
Operations
editBeing 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 WAP-7 and 97 WAG-9 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.[11] It handled prestigious trains like the Amarkantak Express,[12] Rani Kamlapati-Jabalpur Janshatabdi Express,[13] Humsafar Express[14] 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.[15] Itarsi based WAG-9 locomotives perform banking duties with fully loaded freight trains at Budni ghats.
Livery and markings
edit
Itarsi ELS has its own logo and stencils. It is written on loco's body side as well as front & back side.
Locomotives
edit| SN | Type of Loco | HP | Holding |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | WAP-7 | 6350 | 89 |
| 2. | WAG-9 | 6120 | 152 |
| Total locomotives active as of October 2024[16][17] | 241 | ||
Former locomotives
edit| SN | Type of Loco | HP | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | WAG-5 | 3850 | All locomotives transferred to DLS/ET[18] |
| 2. | WAM-4 | 3640 | All locomotives scrapped[19] |
| 3. | WAP-4 | 5050 | All locomotives transferred to other sheds |
References
edit- ^ "Electric Loco Shed, Itarsi - About us". electriclocosheditarsi.com. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
- ^ Bhopal railway division
- ^ West Central Railways zone
- ^ "Electric shed WCR"
- ^ "[IRFCA] Indian Railways FAQ: Steam Locomotive Sheds in the 1970s". www.irfca.org. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "scan0189.jpg". www.irfca.org. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
- ^ "Report of the expert Committee on Coal Consumption on Railways, 1958". INDIAN CULTURE. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
- ^ "Electric loco shed location". Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- ^ History PDF
- ^ "Nov 2019 Locomotive Holding list" (PDF).[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Sheds and Workshops".
- ^ Amarkantak express
- ^ Janshatabdi Express
- ^ Humsafar express
- ^ Transfer of WAP-4 locomotives of Itarsi
- ^ "e-Locos". Archived from the original on 20 May 2017.
- ^ "Electric Loco Shed, Itarsi". Archived from the original on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
- ^ "WAG-5 23930". IRFCA Locomotive Database. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
Transferred to ET DLS [May 2018]. Marked "Unfit for MAIL"
- ^ "WAM-4 21396". IRFCA Locomotive Database. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
In Scrap Auction [July 2019]
