Indian Railways WDM-2

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Back in the days before General Electric got big into building locomotives, there was this famous company called American Locomotive Company, or Alco. Similar to today's major builders, their locomotive also sold across the globe. Right, my title gave it away. This post is about an Indian locomotive designed and first by Alco in 1962. Starting in 1964, India produced this locomotive domestically at the Indian Railways' very own Diesel Locomotive Works.

Indian diesel loco WDM2.jpg
"Indian diesel loco WDM2" by Miya.m - Miya.m's file. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Started life as the DL560C, 40 units of this Alco and 40 EMD SD24 were produced in America and shipped to India for trials. Compared to the SD24, the DL560C was deemed more reliable and rugged. With the added benefit of a technology transfer agreement from Alco for domestic production and simple maintenance, India went big on the DL560C, known there as the WDM-2 (wide gauge, diesel, mixed use). More than 2 700 of this locomotive were produced, and they are still in service today.

SLR M8 Loco.jpg
"SLR M8 Loco" by Lanil T Marasinghe - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Prime mover of the WDM-2 is the well known Alco 251-B, used on many of our domestic units of the day. Output of the locomotive is a decent 2 600 hp. The locomotive is geared to have a maximum speed of 75 mph in service. More details of the WDM-2 can be found on the Wikipedia page linked here.

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