Jamalpur Workshop

The Railway age in Eastern India started on August 15, 1854, exactly ninety-three years before Independence. A locomotive, carriage and wagon workshop was set up in Howrah to put to commission imported rolling stock of EIR and also to render economic repairs to them. The railways spread very fast, perhaps faster than the anticipation of EIR. Within a short span of eight years it became necessary to shift the site of shop, as there was hardly any scope for expansion at Howrah. The shop was located at Jamalpur. The British chose Jamalpur as the site of this workshop due to ready availability of skilled workers who were descendants of acclaimed gun makers and fabricators of weapons of steel for the Nawabs of Bengal and Orissa. Jamalpur is also geographically well located, on the western side of a hill range while the Ganges flow 7 km. north of it.

Established on the 8th day of February, 1862, Jamalpur Workshop has enjoyed the distinction of being the largest and the oldest locomotive repair workshop with the most diversified manufacturing activities on the Indian Railways.

Vital Statistics

Area: 574,654 sq. meters

Staff: 11,485

No. of Machinery and Plants: 1628

Power consumed: 7 MVA

Water supply: 7.3 million litres /day.

Annual Turnover: Rs. 1.56 billion

This is the only workshop in Indian Railways that has a captive Power house. ( 5 MVA)

The workshop has a number of FIRSTS in India to its credit, a few of which are

* The FIRST to manufacture a steam locomotive and a locomotive boiler – 216 of which were manufactured between 1899 and 1923.

* The FIRST to have set up a rolling mill not only on the railways, but probably in the country in 1870.

* The FIRST to establish a railway foundry in the year 1893.

* The FIRST to manufacture a rail crane in the country with indigenous know-how in 1961.

* The FIRST to manufacture high capacity electrical lifting jacks and ticket printing, ticket chopping, ticket slitting and ticket counting machines.

* The FIRST and the only railway workshop to manufacture electrical arc furnaces of ½ tonne capacity in 1961 for production of steel castings.

* The FIRST and only to manufacture 140 Tonne Diesel BreakDown Cranes.

Current Activities

With the gradual eclipse of steam traction on Indian Railways, steam locomotive activities, which had peaked to 600 Standard units per month in 1962-63, started declining in the late 60’s and finally the steam activities came to a complete end in August’92. The shop kept pace with both , the technology change and technology up gradation on Indian Railways and diversified its activities to the Overhauling and Repair of Diesel Locomotives, Overhauling and Repair of various types of Wagons, Manufacture and Overhauling of Diesel Hydraulic Break Down Cranes up to 140 tonne capacity and Manufacture and Repair of various types of Tower Cars.

To meet the expected increase in loading the Indian Railway, apart from pursuing existing wagon manufacturers, would start wagon production at the Jamalpur workshop.

POH and repair of diesel locomotives : Started in 1982 the workshop caters full demand of Eastern Railway. The Workshop also deals with Special repairs to accident involved locomotives and locomotives owned by various Public Sector Undertakings like NTPC, CPT, SAIL in the eastern region.So far 84 such Locomotives from PSUs have been repaired and generated a cash inflow of Rs. 26 crores.

Rebuilding and repair of BOX wagons : Due to generation of a large no of unloadable BOX wagons in Eastern Railway and thus limiting the usage of these wagons it was felt necessary to introduce special type of repair to BOX wagons in between POH to make them earn revenue. These scheme yielded results and Jamalpur shops gradually increased their production from 2445 FWUs in 95-96 to 3602 FWUs in 99-2000.

Apart from the above main activity Jamalpur Shops are also engaged in

* POH and Manufacture of Cranes and Tower Cars
* POH of Tower Cars
* POH of 140 T Gottwald Cranes and other cranes ranging from 20T to 120T
* POH of Plasser Unimat Tamping Machines
* Manufacture of Tower Cars Mark -II and mark III

Manufacture of Cranes 10T , 20T, and 140 T Break Down cranes : With the transfer of technology the workshop has taken up manufacture of sophisticated 140T Diesel Hydraulic BD Cranes. Initially all Components were imported from Germany , but now with gradual indigenisation the cost of each cranes has been brought down from Rs.13.0 crores to Rs.8 crores.

As mentioned above this workshop was first in Indian Railways to establish a foundry . and now this foundry shop produces more than 1 lakh medium phosphorus brake blocks per month for use in Eastern railway as well as S.E.Rly, Northern Rly. and N.F.Rly.With the switching over to composite brake blocks the activities in this field is expected to be reduced by 50% in the years to come.

Manufacturing of Heavy Duty Lifting Jacks : Not only IR but also Public Sector units like NTPC, SAIL Port authorities have acclaimed the product and still being manufactured earning cash flow to this resource starved unit.

Manufacture of Wheel sets and other spares for C&W, Diesel and Engineering. The workshop has been entrusted with the work of supplying wheel sets to Coach manufacturers after assembly. In 99-2000 the work shop supplied finished wheel sets to M/s Jessops; M/s BEML and ICF works.

External Links and References

* [http://www.jmper.com/ Official site of the Jamalpur Locomotive Works ]

* [http://www.indiainfoline.com/bu06/rail/r8.html Report on Railway Budget 2004 ]

* [http://www.irfca.org/users/mrinal/jamalpur.html The Indian Railway Fan Club ]

* [http://www.irfca.org/users/mrinal/jamalpur_a.html Genesis of the workshop (IRFCA site)]

* [http://www.biharscoop.com/story/2005/9/5/20637/80353 History of Jamalpur Locomotive Works]