It’s under discussion if Turkey’s new generation electric loco E68000 can be used for freight transport or not.
E68000, the electric loco being produced by Tülomsaş under Hyundai Rotem licence since 2014 has not met the needs exactly yet. 80 4ax Bo’Bo’ type E68000s are used mainly for passenger trains. The traction of freight trains on Turkey’s densest electrified stretch, Divrigi-Sivas, has mainly been done by 20-years-old Toshiba locomotives.
Maximum traction capacity of E68000s are far below than E 43000 and DE 33000.
Max gross loads of locos – TCDD network statement
Is E68000, which caused loss of trust in Bo’Bo’ type locos for some players, wrong choice for freight transport? We asked this question to drivers and producers.
Several loco drivers have declared that they have faced performance problems and spinning especially when working with one loco. When they run coupled, on the other hand, the performance boosts, as they told.
Another critisism is about the experince in declines. Some drivers told that loco is pushed by wagons in declines.
Although these problems are though to be arousing from being light and having less axles compared to others, especially the engineers from production think different. According to them, these problems mainly aroused because of train management system. Thus the software was recently updated.
A comment of a loco driver which used updated E68000 is important:
When they first started to work, E68000’s traction power was 80% of E43000’s. With updates and improvements, the traction power has been improved. Today, E68000s perform similar traction power with E43000s on steepest slopes of Fevzipasa-Toprakkale stretch .
Tülomsaş experts told that works continue on train management system and E68000s will even be better in near future. They also added that this works together with Rotem and Skoda have increased the know-how and experience of Turkish engineers on electric loco technology.
Cover Photo: İhsan Dolguner ©
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