Feasibility study of natural gas powered locomotive for Bangladesh railway

Abstract

Greater application of alternati '" fuels like eNG for transportation systems hru:;been encouraged and supported by l!angladesh Government. A small reductic," in fuel consumption through use of alternate cheaper fuel, efficient engine and Improved techn(llogy can result ill substantial savings in fud bills. Resides cost aspects, the alternate fuel needs to be environment friendly withaul major input requirement, in the existing system. As of dale, more than one million vehicles arc running with eNG in the world. Even in Bangladesh, realizing the adverse impact of increased envlrorunental pollution, CNG ha~ been adopted for public transportation in a big way. A large portion of the public transport vehicles including buses, taxis, aulo rickshaws etc. have been converted into CNG powered vehicles. This has improved the air quality in major cities substantially. Appiication of Natural Gas as fuei for the raiiway has hot been addressed yet. Bangladesh Railway now owns 285 locomotives. all run by diesel. The fuel consumed during the last fiscal year was about 35,759 mdric tone.', costing aooUl taka 121 crore. As Bangladesh has no oii reserves, almost the entire amount ofiiqllid fuel con,umed annually in the country has to be imported. Since the mid 80's, a number of projects were launched in the US, Canada, and Russia to assess the viability of thc natllral ga, flleled locomotive. These projects produced varying degrees of succcss and pro, ided ~atllnble insight for fllrther development. In Pcn" a mountain railway is bcing operated successfully with a duai fuel engine, which replaces about 50% of the diesel fuel with natural gas, Northern Railways, lndia is now conducting trial run, of locomotives with ceo-friendly CNG in diftercnt route,. In light of the aoovc dcvciopments, and the uncertainty if world oil markct and the high costs of imported fuel, Bangladesh Railway must look for other options, It is worthwhile conducting a f~a~ibility study to sec if nalural gas can be successfllily used in thc railway sector as well. from thc financial analysis of this report, it can be concluded that, cost reduction ofCNG powered train is 30% compared to diesel fuel and lntel1lai Rate of RClllrn i, 50%. rhe projcct has al~o addressed technical, economic and environmental Issues for implementing natural gas powered locomotives for Bangladesh Railway.