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Made in China, repaired in Bangladesh

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Published on 12:00 AM, September 08, 2022

Made in China, repaired in Bangladesh​

Local experts bring imported but inoperative trains back on track


demu-train-repair-1.jpg

Kongkon Karmaker
In 2013, the government imported 20 sets of DEMU (diesel–electric multiple unit) trains from China's Tangshan Railway Vehicle Company Limited.

The import cost was Tk 650 crore. The trains were supposed to run for at least 35 years -- or that's what the Chinese company committed to.
But all 20 trains went off the tracks within four years of operation.

This not only wasted so much money but also made people suffer, as they had to deal with lack of regular locomotives for travelling.

Bangladesh Railway was baffled when it contacted the supplier company in 2018 for repairing the trains, as the charge they demanded was almost equal to the import cost.

This left the authorities clueless, as they had to abandon the DEMU train project as a result.
But in 2020, local experts came to the rescue.
Two of the 20 trains were brought to Central Locomotive Workshop in Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur.

Md Rafiqul Islam, chief executive of the workshop, said these trains are "software-electric, module-controlled vehicles", which is something new to local experts.

Each train has 40 electric-software modules for operation, he explained.

The experts didn't give in; they planned on playing to their strengths. The modules were replaced with inverters.

Batteries made in China were replaced with a set of batteries available in local markets.

All the parts used for modifying and customising the trains were bought at a cheap rate from the local market, said the engineer. It was yet to be estimated how much was spent to repair each train, but sources told this correspondent that it was around Tk 50 lakh.

The locomotive engineers collaborated with engineers of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology for this endeavour, Rafiqul added.

Initiatives will be taken to repair the other inoperative trains, he said.

Their hard work of more than a year finally paid off, as one of the repaired trains, ready to be up and running again, was handed over to Bangladesh Railway recently, after a successful trial run from Parbatipur to Panchagarh, confirmed the railway officials in Parbatipur.

Another test was held on Thursday. The other train will also be back on track soon, said the officials. Initiatives will be taken to repair the remaining, they added.

It can carry at least 700 to 800 passengers, said Harun Ur Rashid, a driver of the train.

Monjur-Ul Alam Chowdhury, additional director general of railway, said, "Local experts successfully repaired the train at a much cheaper rate, which helped us save funds."
"Our experts proved and showed their skills," he said.

 
last year, Bangladesh imported another 100 broad-gauge railway passenger cars from China Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co., Ltd. The Bangladeshi government doesn't seem to have learned its lesson?
 
20 train sets I believe, so if one train set has 10 carriages, it means around 200 car carriages that can be carried by one train set. This is huge and it will be good if all of them can be repaired inside the country. So it is more about electronic mall function
 
Published on 12:00 AM, September 08, 2022

Made in China, repaired in Bangladesh​

Local experts bring imported but inoperative trains back on track


demu-train-repair-1.jpg

Kongkon Karmaker
In 2013, the government imported 20 sets of DEMU (diesel–electric multiple unit) trains from China's Tangshan Railway Vehicle Company Limited.

The import cost was Tk 650 crore. The trains were supposed to run for at least 35 years -- or that's what the Chinese company committed to.
But all 20 trains went off the tracks within four years of operation.

This not only wasted so much money but also made people suffer, as they had to deal with lack of regular locomotives for travelling.

Bangladesh Railway was baffled when it contacted the supplier company in 2018 for repairing the trains, as the charge they demanded was almost equal to the import cost.

This left the authorities clueless, as they had to abandon the DEMU train project as a result.
But in 2020, local experts came to the rescue.
Two of the 20 trains were brought to Central Locomotive Workshop in Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur.

Md Rafiqul Islam, chief executive of the workshop, said these trains are "software-electric, module-controlled vehicles", which is something new to local experts.

Each train has 40 electric-software modules for operation, he explained.

The experts didn't give in; they planned on playing to their strengths. The modules were replaced with inverters.

Batteries made in China were replaced with a set of batteries available in local markets.

All the parts used for modifying and customising the trains were bought at a cheap rate from the local market, said the engineer. It was yet to be estimated how much was spent to repair each train, but sources told this correspondent that it was around Tk 50 lakh.

The locomotive engineers collaborated with engineers of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology for this endeavour, Rafiqul added.

Initiatives will be taken to repair the other inoperative trains, he said.

Their hard work of more than a year finally paid off, as one of the repaired trains, ready to be up and running again, was handed over to Bangladesh Railway recently, after a successful trial run from Parbatipur to Panchagarh, confirmed the railway officials in Parbatipur.

Another test was held on Thursday. The other train will also be back on track soon, said the officials. Initiatives will be taken to repair the remaining, they added.

It can carry at least 700 to 800 passengers, said Harun Ur Rashid, a driver of the train.

Monjur-Ul Alam Chowdhury, additional director general of railway, said, "Local experts successfully repaired the train at a much cheaper rate, which helped us save funds."
"Our experts proved and showed their skills," he said.

Instead of just vomiting whatever the government tells them, these journalists should investigate why these train became inoperable in the first place.
Were they maintained according to maintenance plans? Were there even workable maintenance plans developed in the first place? Were the maintainers adequately trained?
Were defects adequately managed? Was defect liability in place and enforced?
Many questions need to be answered.
 
Instead of just vomiting whatever the government tells them, these journalists should investigate why these train became inoperable in the first place.
Were they maintained according to maintenance plans? Were there even workable maintenance plans developed in the first place? Were the maintainers adequately trained?
Were defects adequately managed? Was defect liability in place and enforced?
Many questions need to be answered.

I am guessing some deliberate sabotage by rail officials because they did not earn enough bribes from Chinese.
 
last year, Bangladesh imported another 100 broad-gauge railway passenger cars from China Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co., Ltd. The Bangladeshi government doesn't seem to have learned its lesson?
This move clearly shown the breakdown do nothing with Made in China. But more to do with maintenance of it.
 
Get these guys to take over maintance and then get them to assemble CKD kits with locally substituted items.

This is how china started and we can do the same.
 
If the operation and maintenance are not done properly, even the best equipment made by the most reliable manufacturer in the world can go wrong within 1 month, not one year.

I do not know about this case, but diesel-electric locomotive D19E made by China is the backbone of Vietnamese railways, with more than 80 locos and they have proved to be more reliable than the D20e loco (same capacity), which is made in Germany, therefore Vietnam Railways, which initially wanted to make the German loco the backbone of railway, had to stop importing them and moved to the Chinese ones instead. Now only 8 or 10 D20e locos are working on Vietnamese railways.

I have been working with various kind of G7 equipment, especially in power plants. American gas turbines (GE) and Japanese steam turbines went broken just after less than 1 year of operation, but I do not blame the manufacturers. Installation and commissioning by EPC contractor, as well as operation skill, have been the root causes in nearly 99% of the cases. And if the owner does not have money for part replacement and Vendor' specialist visit (which normally cost $6000 for one Western engineer for one day nowadays, the machines will go rusting.
 
Or Chinese enough bribed those rail officials to let sub-standard, high maintenance product pass through.
Then the corruption of the Bangladeshi government is really surprising. After such a serious scandal, it continued to order more wide-gauge trains from the same company last year.
 
Or Chinese enough bribed those rail officials to let sub-standard, high maintenance product pass through.
Where is your your evidence of your accusation that these chinese locomotives are substandard and chinese bribed bengals ? Just come out you indians foul mouth as usual.
 
This is Chinese junk trains and Bangladesh is not the only country to discover that these trains are badly manufactured. Pakistan has the same experience as do many many other countries which have had to junk these so called trains.
Bribes offered by the Chinese induced these countries into making terrible choices and they got fleeced
 
This is Chinese junk trains and Bangladesh is not the only country to discover that these trains are badly manufactured. Pakistan has the same experience as do many many other countries which have had to junk these so called trains.
Bribes offered by the Chinese induced these countries into making terrible choices and they got fleeced
I think you nothing good at but smearing china indians are junks.
 
Portugal is a dying economy, it might be in EU but calling it "EU standard" seems like usual tactic of patting your own back like little pinks.

lol, Indians with an average of $2000 per person ridiculed Portugal, which has an average of $24000 per person, as a dying economy.

okya, this is the news that the same company exported 44 trains to Montreal, Canada.

Canada is your Anglo Saxon dad. Do you still dare to say that Canada is a dying economy?


 

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