First Railway Production Unit to come up o­n South Central Railway

FIAT Rail Bogie Karkhana, Yadgir to be Inaugurated on 18th August 2017

Around 600 LHB Bogie Frames to be manufactured at the RBK per annum

Secunderabad: The FIAT Rail Bogie Karkhana (RBK), set up at Badiyal and Kadechur Villages in Yadgir District of Karnataka is to be inaugurated by Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister for Railways on 18th August 2017. This will be the first Railway Production Unit to come up o­n South Central Railway.

The foundation stone for the Rail Bogie Karkhana at Yadgir was laid in February 2014 and the work was awarded to M/s. Tata Projects Ltd., with the executing agency being the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL). The Karkhana was completed at a cost of Rs. 80.92 crore and has come up o­n 150 acres of land given free by Government of Karnataka to Indian Railways. The Karkhana has located 40 Km from Raichur Railway Station o­n the way to Saidpur Railway Station and approximately 10 Km from Saidpur Railway Station.

The background for setting up of Rail Bogie Karkhana, Yadgir

Indian Railways has taken a giant step in modernizing its fleet by replacing the conventional coaches, in a phased manner, with Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches. In addition to ensuring safe travel, these coaches are designed for higher passenger capacity with operating speed up to 160 km/hr.

At present, the production capacity of the LHB Coaches is 2800 LHB Coaches per year at the different Railway coach manufacturing facilities at Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, Integral Coach Factory, Perambur and Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli, o­ne LHB coach requires two FIAT Bogies. The bogie manufacturing capacity, however, in the above manufacturing units is o­nly for 1600 coach sets per year. In order to fill the demand gap, two new Bogie production units were sanctioned at Budge-Budge (Bengal) and Yadgir (Karnataka, South Central Railway) to manufacture FIAT bogie frames. Thus the Karkhana will serve the purpose of enhancing the fleet strength of Indian Railways.

Salient Features of Rail Bogie Karkhana:-

Ø This factory will comprise of manpower strength of around 470 personnel including Railway Employees, Outsourced Employees and local people o­n Indirect Employment.

Ø The Karkhana is set up with Pre-Engineered Building (PEB) technology. The PEB sheds offer several advantages including superior architectural features and excellent aesthetics. They are fully fabricated in the factory premises after designing and shipped to site in CKD (completely knocked down) condition; and are assembled and erected at site with nut-bolts, thereby reducing the time of completion.

Ø Further, most advanced methods of production processes have been established at Rail bogie Karkhana by installing sophisticated machinery and equipment to meet the requirements of high dimensional accuracy and reliability.

ØThe Karkhana exemplifies a green and environment-friendly approach with the use of initiatives such as-

* Ensuring zero effluent discharge.
* Solar electricity by setting solar panels o­n roof of the workshop shed and buildings up to 232KVA.
* Water harvesting mechanism and Water pond to collect run-off water
* Plantation of 25000 trees in the open area of the project.

Ø The Civic Infrastructure includes Service Buildings, Boundary Walls, Roads, Staff Quarters, Water Supply, Drainage, Sewerage, Earth Work, Horticulture and Two Wheeler Parking Shed etc., besides the main production unit which is made of PEB Shed.

Ø Power Supply arrangements comprises of 11KV Power Supply drawn from State Electricity authority with Electrical Sub-station and standby power production. A 232kWp Grid connected Solar Plant is also set up.

Production Process

The side bogie frames are set o­n jigs & fixtures and initial welding is done manually. The bogie frames are then transferred to Robotic Welding line for full welding. The welded frames are then subjected to Shot blasting and painting. The painted bogie frames are fed to 5-Axis CNC machine centre for machining. The finished bogie frames are transported to Production Units at ICF/PER, RCF/Kapurthala as per demand.

Important Production Machinery

Ø 5- Axis CNC Machining Centre with ATC (Automatic tool changes) (Cost- Rs.25 cr approx)

5 Axis CNC machine is used for machining of Bogie frames.The machine is capable of undertaking different rough and finish machining operations such as, Pre-milling, Milling, Chamfering, Drilling, Boring, Counter boring, Reaming, Threading, Tapping, Spot face milling etc using Automatic tooling selection transfer /exchange.ATC has 48 tools with tool change time of 30 secs.

* Capacity – o­ne bogie per shift.

Ø Robotic Welding Machine (Cost- Rs. 6 Cr approx)

The Six Axis Robotic Machine with articulated long arm type construction is used for welding of bogie. It can cover entire length of the side frame. It has tactile gas nozzle sensor, for seam tracking and uses tandem wire technology (twin wire).

* Capacity – Two Bogie frames per shift.

Ø Bogie Frame shot blasting Machine (Cost: Rs.2.4 Crs Approx.)

The fabricated bogie frames are shot blasted with spinner hanger type shot blasting system for the proper surface finish before painting. The plant has a blasting chamber, abrasive and dust collection system, bucket elevator and abrasive separator. The flow of shots to the blasting turbine wheels is controlled by the shot controller and the plant conforms to applicable PCB norms.

* Capacity: 3 Bogie frames per shift.

Ø Bogie Frame Painting Booth (Cost: Rs.3 Crs Approx.)

After shot blasting, the bogie frames are painted with high performance anti corrosive EPOXY 1st coat of primer and a top coat of DFT 60 micron. The paint booth has overall length 6 mtrs, width 3.6 mtrs and height 6.1 metres for air less painting of bogie frame. The painted bogie frames are finally fed to 5 – Axis CNC machine for final machining. The plant conforms to applicable PCB norms.

* Capacity: 2 Bogie frames per shift.