“Transachema” purchased the first battery-powered locomotive of such high capacity in the country

The first battery-powered locomotive of “Transachema” in the country, capable of pulling loads weighing up to 3,000 tons, is rolling along the railway tracks.

The Chief Executive Officer of “Transachema” Jonas Varkulevičius claimed that the new purchase not only ensures environmentally friendly freight transportation, as diesel has been replaced by electricity, but is also economically beneficial.

“In order to ensure environmentally friendly freight transportation, we invested in updating the rolling stock and purchased a sustainable locomotive. It was delivered to us from Bulgaria quite recently, but we already had time to prove the usefulness of our purchase: although it looks no bigger than a car, it easily pulled a load of 1500 tons. By the way, colleagues from neighbouring countries also come to see the only such locomotive in the country. I believe that, after being convinced of the capabilities of this locomotive, colleagues will also be inspired to transport freight in an ecological and economical way,” stated the CEO of “Transachema”.

The weight of the locomotive is 47 tons, the length is 7.7 m, the noise level during movement is minimal, since it does not exceed 10 decibels, while the noise emitted by a diesel locomotive reaches 115 decibels.

Two batteries with a capacity of 1400 Ah are installed in the locomotive. With a fully charged battery, the locomotive can operate for about 7.5 hours before the charge level reaches the lowest permissible limit of 30 percent. Battery charging time from 30 percent to the maximum level is about 5-6 hours, but since the charging devices are installed in the locomotive itself, the batteries can be charged at any time without waiting for them to discharge to the minimum level.

The locomotive is also equipped with radio frequency remote control with a portable remote control, the operating distance of which is up to 300 m. It is also equipped with safety systems: automatic parking brake, emergency braking, battery charge monitoring, driver alertness device SIFA.

“Staff training and getting acquainted with the capabilities of the new locomotive is currently underway. The locomotive was delivered to us on the last days of February, during this time we covered about 200 km of experimental runs with the locomotive in “Achema” factory and other customer territories,” told J. Varkulevičius.

The railway transport service company “Transachema”, which provides freight transportation, forwarding, shunting and wagon rental services, plans to continue supplementing the vehicle stock with environmentally friendly rolling stock in the future.