BLW Readies 10 Diesel Locomotives for Mozambique and Other African Railways

VARANASI: Banaras Locomotive Works is preparing ten diesel locomotives for railway customers in Africa, adding a fresh export chapter to a factory better known at home for its shift towards high-powered electric traction.

Five of the 3,300-horsepower locomotives are intended for ICVL operations in Mozambique and five for other African railway systems, according to a production update reported on Tuesday. All ten are designed for Cape-gauge track, which is 1.067 metres wide and remains common across large parts of southern and sub-Saharan Africa. Delivery is expected in phases.

The Mozambique order uses a high-horsepower, two-stroke platform drawing on General Motors technology. The second group is based on an ALCO platform converted for the customer’s operating requirements and uses a four-stroke engine. BLW says the designs are intended to improve fuel and lubricant efficiency while meeting the practical demands of freight service on narrower-gauge networks.

Export locomotives are not simply domestic engines in a different coat of paint. Track gauge, axle load, couplers, braking systems, climate, maintenance capacity and the profile of the route all influence the final build. Documentation and spares also matter once an engine is thousands of kilometres from the factory that produced it. The durability of after-sales support will therefore be as important as dispatching the locomotives on time.

The Varanasi unit says it has supplied 182 locomotives to 11 countries, including Sri Lanka, Sudan, Myanmar, Tanzania, Senegal, Mali, Malaysia, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique and Bangladesh. More than 2,500 locomotives have been manufactured at the plant using the technologies on which the current export engines are based, the report said.

At the same time, BLW’s domestic production plan is increasingly electric. Its target for the financial year includes 460 six-thousand-horsepower electric locomotives, among them 166 push-pull units for Amrit Bharat train sets. A separate 4,500-horsepower WDG-4 diesel locomotive is expected to be supplied to the Obra thermal power project next month.

That mix explains why the African order is significant. It allows BLW to retain specialised diesel manufacturing skills while Indian Railways continues electrification at scale. For the city, export work supports engineering jobs, suppliers and the institutional knowledge built around the historic locomotive campus.

The next milestones will be factory inspection, customer acceptance and shipment. Performance claims will ultimately be tested on the routes for which the engines were built. Even so, ten locomotives leaving Varanasi for African railways are a reminder that one of Kashi’s largest industrial institutions operates far beyond the city’s ceremonial image.