Question

Describe the growth and development of railway equipment industry in India.

Answer 1

Indian railway equipment’s are mostly manufactured at the following places.

• Chittaranjan Locomotive Works: The development of locomotive manufacturing began with this company. It was established in the year 1950. This factory obtains steel from Asansol and Jamshedpur and hydel power from Maithon dam. It has produced 2,351 steam locomotives up to 1970. It started manufacturing electric locomotives from 1981.
• Diesel Locomotive Works: This was set up in Varanasi in the year 1964. It has annual capacity of 150 locos.
  
• Tata Engineering and Locomotive Works: It is a private sector unit set up in Jamshedpur in the year 1952. It produced 1,300 locomotives. Presently its prod­ucts include tippers, forklifts, dumper placers and shutters.
  
• Coaches: Railway coaches are produced mostly from integral coach factory, Chennai which was set up in the year 1955 with collaboration of Switzerland. Up to March 1981 it had manufactured 12,680 pas­senger coaches.