Indian locomotive class WDAP-5

Since 2016, Indian Railways has pushed for greater electrification of the railway network.[1] In this interest, the government, in 2019, approved plans for 100% electrification.[2] So far Indian Railways has electrified 39,866 RKMs which accounts for about 63% of the total route kilometres.[3] Using electric locomotives allows the railways to save time by giving a faster acceleration and also saves fuel costs. However, these advantages are offset under certain circumstances where the route of the train is partly electrified. In such cases, trains used to run with a diesel locomotive in non-electrified sections and would be switched with an electric locomotive as soon as they enter an electrified section. Instead of the benefits of electrification, Railways observed a loss of punctuality in such trains due to valuable time being lost to switch between diesel and electric locomotives. To counter this, in August 2019, Railways issued a circular, asking all zones to haul trains with a diesel locomotive if their route was not completely electrified.[4] This meant that electrification of railway lines, unless completed end-to-end, did not provide any advantage. This problem had been identified by the Railways, way back in 2016, which is when RDSO was requested to study the feasibility of dual-mode locomotives as a stop-gap until 100% electrification was achieved.[5]