February 3, 1925 was when the first electric train ran on the Indian Railways from Bombay VT to Kurla. 2025 thus marks the centenary of electric traction on IR, and strategically when IR will achieve 100% electrification.

Electrification enables using renewable sources of energy though initially the share of non-renewable may continue to be high. The dependence on coal, a non-renewable energy source, is what detractors of electrification use as an argument, saying it is not an improvement over the use of oil in diesel traction. Even so, electrification enables shifting localised pollution from a disaggregated context over the rail network to an aggregated context where coal-based thermal plants are located, which provides for better pollution management.

The argument that IR is a low consumer of non-renewables in the national context -- it was estimated at being under 2% of the national diesel consumption in 2021-22 when significant electrification had already taken place -- and that further electrification will not really make an impact is not a good one. The real question is whether all organisations can do their best towards reducing the impact of climate change, especially those consuming energy.

Electrification is important because it will help earn carbon credits, not only for IR, but also for IR’s freight users in terms of ‘greening’ their material transportation. This will be an attractive proposition for increasing rail modal share of traffic, a very important objective of the National Rail Plan.

Completing electrification at a fast pace enables streamlined locomotive movement on the network rather than having to coordinate between electric and diesel where a change of traction would be required on the network. Such coordination would require locomotive holdings at change of traction stations and additional train-halting time for locomotive change. Thus, the streamlined movement benefits are in easing operational coordination and leveraging the idea of ‘standardisation’ of a large network-based infrastructure.

Another operational benefit of electrification is the ability to use the source of traction power for train use, thus avoiding at least one coach-per-long distance train for diesel generators. There could be other uses of this power, or the infrastructure behind it, like communication, lighting requirements etc.

An argument against the pace of electrification is this: given the large number of functional diesel locomotives (about 4500), why not slow the pace of electrification, building it up as diesel locomotives go into retirement. Another argument is: due to the capital cost of electrification, only those parts of the network that have a high traffic density providing financial breakeven should be electrified. The aspect of financial breakeven is often estimated incorrectly since it focuses just on the segment being considered for electrification without examining the cascading network effects including delays to trains and locomotives at change-of-traction stations.

The counter to these arguments in favour of fast electrification is that diesel locomotives can be used until they are retired. While the infrastructure for the electrification is put in place, the manufacture and induction of electric locomotives can be synchronised with the retirement of diesel locomotives. What is important is that streamlined movement is enabled and the diesel traction is used more by choice rather, and not because there’s no alternative.

Further, the railways is also trying to seek export markets for surplus diesel locomotives, if required even by reengineering to suit foreign railway gauge requirements; RITES recently won contracts to precisely work on this.

In any case, contingency requirements when electric traction wire gets affected during accidents will need diesel locomotives to be positioned at different locations in the network and kept ready to be used. The IR has already pushed the railway zones to make proposals for such locations and the number of diesel locomotives required; about 2500 are expected to be needed.

A big opportunity here is to see if diesel locomotives can be reengineered to double up as electric locomotives. Some efforts have been made in this direction. Is it also possible to deploy electric locomotives, which can function using battery packs or diesel or better still hydrogen, at least for the contingency period? If this works out, a separate contingency fleet would not be required.

There is also the argument that we carry coal, which accounts for half of IR’s freight revenue and one-third the total IR revenue, and hence where is the contribution to greening? This is a poor argument. Moving coal is a national need. India will continue to be coal dependant, though hopefully with a reducing share and quantity. And if coal must be transported for companies in the power, steel or cement sectors then why not provide a greener means of transportation?

What the railways really needs to worry about is whether this need to transport coal will reduce over the years, given the country’s thrust towards reducing emission. The IR had better be prepared and position itself for getting other cargo. Towards this, the electrification of IR will be a useful carbon credit pitch to attract cargo.

Overall, I believe that the 100% electrification of IR as a greening effort is a reform that is timely. On this dimension, IR can be proud to be a role model not only for other organisations in India, but also for railways internationally.