Western Railway’s new technology to monitor rakes 24×7

During night when all events are being downloaded from the port at the motorman’s cabin,if the system pops-up a message number 145,it means that there is bearing failure or cage breaking in the traction motor.

Lalit Patnoi,Divisional Electrical Engineer,WR,told media persons: “Event Downloading has been started in all rakes at the interval of three days from February 28 for intense monitoring of message number.145 to detect defects in traction motor in advance,as well as other defects,which may cause failure of train on tracks.”

Shyam Sunder Gupta,Chief Public Relations Officer of WR said,“Twelve traction motors have been changed in time before a failure could occur by monitoring of message number 145.”

Meanwhile,as traction motors have been the source of majority of the failures in WR and CR,Siemens,the firm that provided technology for the rakes,has given order to replace all traction motors in the new rakes. New motors are expected to arrive in Mumbai in April. Meanwhile,spare motors are being used to replace damaged motors at the Mumbai Central EMU car shed.

Gupta said,“So far,56 traction motors have been changed in the new Siemens rakes,out of which 36 traction motors had failed.” At present,there are 17 rakes on tracks and two are under commissioning at Kandivali car shed.

Gupta added that an upgraded version of train management software has been uploaded in two rakes,and based on its performance,it will be extended to all rakes.”

Other initiatives
1. From February 6 onwards,while stabling of Siemens rakes in both of the sheds as well as in stabling yards,temperature of TM driving end bearing is being monitored to detect TM failure in advance.
2. To prevent the malfunctioning of Auto Warning System (AWS),a cyclic check of this has been started from February 16,and till date 16 rakes have been completed.
3. To improve the reliability of rakes,multi function vehicle bus (MVB) testing has been started.