In the following months the locomotive, which represents a unique technology in Europe, will be subject to the operational tests required for its authorization and use in Hungary.
RCH, a market-leading rail freight company, ordered the locomotive to meet the shunting needs of single wagon transport service, which is provided nationwide in Hungary only by RCH. This service is the costliest railway activity, during which the wagons of a freight train are assembled or disassembled at the shunting stations.
For this task, RCH mostly utilizes diesel locomotives ordered from MÁV-START. As the services provided by MÁV-START are decreasing, it is strategically important for RCH to strengthen its own shunting capacity.
Due to this, and to enhance cost-effectiveness and sustainability, the company ordered the technological development and manufacturing of the locomotive back in 2019. After the authorization process is completed, RCH will lease the finished machine “under favorable financial conditions, including maintenance,” it confirmed.
The locomotive manufactured in the Southeast of China, in Hunan province, weighs 74 tons, and its technology is electric-electric hybrid, which is also unique in the electrical market. The vehicle uses a lithium-titanate battery for shunting operations. Due to its high-capacity energy storing technology, it charges the battery on routes, where overhead lines are available, hence enhancing the vehicle’s efficiency.
Its traction capacity in overhead line-mode is 850 kW and when using the battery 350 kW. The e-hybrid shunting locomotive of RCH can tow a train of 800-tonnes without an overhead line for 85 minutes at a speed of 20 km/h.
After obtaining the licenses, the vehicle will fulfil tasks in Hungary mostly on shunting stations and industrial sidings. In Hungary there is no overhead line above the industrial sidings and the loading tracks, therefore, railway companies are currently performing the shunting activities with costly and polluting diesel machines.
The new shunting locomotive will commence its operation in the second half of 2022.