BENGALURU: Over five months after it shut shop forcing complete stoppage of manufacture of wheels for Indian Railways, the Rail Wheel Factory was opened on Wednesday. The closure was effected to take steps to switch over the fuel which powers operations in its largest furnace to an eco-friendly one.
The Rotary Hearth Normalising Furnace, which was being operated right from the factory’s inception in 1984, can discharge a wheel a minute, said an official release. It was run only on High Speed Diesel (HSD) and will henceforth operate using Purified Natural Gas (PNG).
“To take up the massive task of conversion of this furnace from oil fired to PNG, wheel production had to be stopped and hence Wheel Shop was under shutdown from 8th February 2021,” the release said. The expected savings due to the new furnance is approximately Rs 17 crore per annum which will eventually help in reducing the production cost of each wheel, it added.
The project was sanctioned by the Railway Board during 2017-2018. The work was awarded to WESMAN Engineering Private Limited at a cost of Rs 20.98 crores in December 2019. Rajiv Kumar Vyas, General Manager, RWF, who lit the furnace on Wednesday to officially declare the furnance open said, “The casting of wheels had started from 15th June this year without heat treatment activities. Full-fledged production activities are likely to commence from 16th August. This conversion to PNG from HSD is a major step taken by RWF towards Green Energy and clean and safe environment.”With the conversion of this furnace, all 05 furnaces at RWF were now working on PNG, clearly heading towards cleaner and hazard free environment, the release said.