Rolling out from Bihar: Waterless urinals for pilots of India’s most powerful locomotives

Vivek Garg, Managing Director, MELPL, told The Indian Express that the company has rolled out a prototype after retrofitting a waterless urinal and it has been in operation for around 4 months. The unavailability of a urinal or toilet in locomotives is one of the biggest problems that a loco pilot faces. “This becomes even more important that now Indian Railways also have lady loco pilots. The original specifications of this locomotive called for a space to be kept but there was no requirement to integrate a waterless urinal. The discussion with Indian Railways is at an advanced stage and they want to integrate waterless urinals in all the locomotives that we are building. The prototype is performing well,” Garg said.

The new locomotive from the Madhepura Electric Locomotive factory in Bihar will have an inbuilt urinal (Express photo by Dheeraj Mishra)

The new locomotive from the Madhepura factory, he said, will have an inbuilt urinal and it will be retrofitted for the ones which have been rolled out.

The company supplied its 650th locomotive to the Railways on August 15. The first 12000 HP locomotive manufactured at the Madhepura facility was put into operation from Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay junction on May 18, 2020. It has a design speed of 120 kmph and can carry 6,000 tonnes of freight.

In 2015, the MELPL was awarded the contract to manufacture and supply 800 locomotives by March 2028. The initial cost of the project was Rs 28,000 crore, which was revised to over Rs 33,000 crore. With this project, India became the sixth country in the world to manufacture 12000 HP electric locomotives.

Asked why it had not been done so far and whether it was due to a technical issue or lack of decision making, Garg said, “I would not say that there is a technical issue or a lack of decision making over here. Integrating a waterless urinal into a locomotive also has its own challenges. For example, it has a safety aspect. When a train or locomotive is moving, you would not like the driver to leave the desk and utilise a waterless urinal, unlike a plane. When it is stationary at some location, only then a driver should be using the urinal.”

The new locomotive from the Madhepura Electric Locomotive factory in Bihar will have an inbuilt urinal (Express photo by Dheeraj Mishra)

He said waterless urinals also require a rethink of water supply and design and this is an area which is evolving over a period of time.

“The specifications of this locomotive were framed around 2014-15, when such systems were not widely available or integrated into locomotive products. I think the Indian industry has matured, and waterless urinals are available now. We have been flexible and open to upgrading locomotives as technology evolves, and that is what we are doing today,” he said.

The initiative is also part of India Railways’ push to provide waterless urinals in all electric locomotives in a phased manner as per feasibility. According to the Railways, as of February 2026, more than 2800 locomotives have been provided with urinals.