Railway overhead electrification has a large number of benefits in terms of both cost and time. Some of them have been elaborated and discussed as follows:
1.Energy conservation: The rail mode of transportation is far more efficient as compared to the roadways. These are 6 times more energy efficient if compared with the roadways. These are 4 times more economical as compared to the roadways. These are 6 times more cost effective in terms of construction costs and in comparison to traffic as well. Electrification is the most energy efficient in the train transportation. For every 100 kilometers, there is annual savings of 4 million liters of diesel which helps to save 2500 crore of the foreign exchange of the nation.
2. Importance in the sub urban areas: This is very much ideal for the sub urban areas due to higher acceleration and the braking features which are required for the easy starts and stops. These are the backbone of the sub urban transportation systems especially in the metro cities. The sub urban areas cater about 5 million passengers daily. Such services have become extremely popular.
3.Heavy freight and longer route trains: Electrification has made possible of running of heavy freight and longer trains. These consist of 2 kinds of locomotives. This has made running of more than 9000 trains. Such tests have already been conducted in the city of Ghaziabad so that there is no issue while implementation. There has been a massive improvement in the technology because of the efforts of the Indian railways.
4.Clearer environment: Another advantage of such technologies is that the whole thing is pollution free. They provide a pollution free environment even to the passengers as well. These are less pollutant than the existing diesel model and provide a good advantage to the flora and fauna. These have even reduced the noise and air pollution and leads to less disturbance to the wild life of the region.
5. Modern equipment: This has led to massive reduction in the costs. This has even improved reliability of the power supply system. Many things like switch gear and insulators have also improved the maintenance of the systems. There has been a lot of monitoring of the performance so that there is no issue with the trains. Even the communication and the signalling services have been improved, so that this could be of much help to the users. This has led to the better visibility. Even the interlocking system is another example of the transformation and the things have gone better in the technological terms. The underground cables have also provided the reliable and better means of communication.
6.Supervisory system: There is a central controlled system from the control center through remote arrangements and other modern equipment.
The control and data based systems also provide help to the users of the systems. There are facilities for the voltage based systems and trouble shootings and isolation of the faulty sections.
Overhead electrification system in railway has been of much help to the people who are concerned with these kinds of systems.
