Suresh Prabhu flags off newly manufactured solar powered Guard Van of Goods Train

Oct 06, 2016: Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu inspected and flagged off the newly manufactured Guard Van of Goods (Freight) Train recently at Delhi Safdarjung Railway Station. The newly manufactured Guard Van of Goods Train (8 wheeled) has been equipped for the first time with Solar powered light, fan, mobile charging point along with the facility of Zero discharge bio toilet. Speaking on the occasion Prabhu said that these facilities will improve the working conditions and functioning of the guards. He also said that powering fans and lights through Solar Panels will help in reducing the carbon footprint of Railways and Indian Railways will pursue to initiate more such initiatives. Indian Railways is also working to run fully solar powered trains, he added.

Guards of freight trains have been working in absence of basic facilities of light and fan. Indian Railways has now attempted to address this shortcoming by providing light and fan arrangement in brake-vans.

The Solar generation is supported with a battery bank to power the brake van facilities for more than 24 hours continuously even on a rainy day. Thus it is expected to provide uninterrupted comfort of basic facilities to the guards.

The system provided has the GPRS support which enables monitoring of the functioning of this system so that necessary maintenance inputs can be made available as and when needed.