Bringing out the 7000th electric locomotive, the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works has become the biggest manufacturer of locomotives in the worldworld. Launching the first electric locomotive in 1961, the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works has broken all records and stand tall among all the locomotive manufacturers.
Noting that ‘Make in India’ continued to power India’s growth story, Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal tweeted that Chittaranjan Locomotive Works broke all new records as the first 1,000 took 25 years and the last 1,000 locomotives were produced in 2.5 years.
Chittaranjan Locomotive Works General Manager Praveen Kumar Mishra flagged off the 7,000th engine in the WAG- 9 HC series.
The first manufacturing unit was considered at Chandmari near Kanchrapara in West Bengal. However, this could not be materialised because of partition. Later the Railway Board in 1947 decided to locate the factory at Chittaranjan near Mihijam. Initially named Loco Building Works, it first produced steam locomotives with the capacity to manufacture 50 spare boilers. The steam loco production commenced on January 26, 1950 and the first locomotive was flagged off on November 1, 1950. The same day, the factory was rechristened and named after Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das.
The Chittaranjan Locomotive Works started the production of Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives in 1968. After bringing out 2351 Steam Locomotives of five types, its production was discontinued from 1973-74. The Locomotive unit produced 842 Diesel Hydraulic Locos of seven types, before the production was discontinued in 1993-94. The manufacture of Electric Locomotives started in 1961.
