A driver tests the controls on one of the renovated locomotives.

INDIA’S Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) Limited officially handed five diesel locomotives over to Myanma Railways (MR) at a ceremony on October 8 at the main railroad station in downtown Yangon.

The engines – the first of 20 renovated locomotives that MR has contracted to buy from the Indian company – were shipped from India’s Chennai port on August 15 onboard MV Magwe, which is owned by Myanma Five Star Line.

The locomotives, which will be used for passenger and cargo trains on the Yangon-Mandalay railway line, arrived in Yangon on September 22.

The second lot of five locomotives is scheduled to arrive in December and the last 10 next March, the general manager of MR’s Electrical and Engineering Depatment, U Tun Oo said at the handing-over ceremony.

He said it was the third time MR has bought diesel locomotives from RITES – 10 were purchased in 1999 and 11 in 2005.

“These engines have similar basic features with those imported in 1999,” U Tun Oo said. “But these have parts, such as driver’s seats and braking systems, that have been modified according to suggestions by local drivers.”

He said the newly arrived locomotives had 1350-horsepower engines and lower fuel consumption rates than previously imported locomotives, and were also equipped with airbrakes and rheostatic braking systems for travelling on steep grades.

“According to our test run, they can pull 17 passenger coaches at 43 miles per hour and 1200-tonne cargo loads at 25 mph,” U Tun Oo said.

The old diesel locomotives had been in use on Indian metre-gauge tracks since the 1960s before being renovated and sold to Myanmar and Tanzania. Other countries that have previously sold diesel locomotives to Myanmar include Germany, France and China.