A two-member delegation of Caminho De Ferro De Moçâmedes (CFM) Angola Railway along with the officers of the RITES Limited, a prime transport infrastructure consultancy and engineering firm, on Friday visited Banaras Locomotive Works (BLW), here to see the diesel and electric locomotive manufacturing facilities.

The delegation included PCA/Chairman of the Board of Directors Antonio Colelho Fernando da Cruz and Director of the Technical Office Nelson Ernesto Ngumbe while the SDGM of RITES, Limited Sumer Singh accompanied them.

On reaching the BLW Administration Building, the Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME)/Production and Marketing Sunil Kumar welcomed the delegation and thereafter, CFM Angola Railway delegation held a meeting with the General Manager of BLW Basudev Panda. In the meeting, various aspects related to railways were discussed. It is noteworthy that three diesel locomotives manufactured by BLW have been exported to Angola in the past.

The high level delegation visited various shops of BLW Workshop like New Block Shop, Light Machine Shop, Engine Test Shop, Loco Assembly Shop etc. During the workshop visit, the delegation was informed about the various stages of manufacturing of diesel and electric locos and was also shown the state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities of locos available at BLW.

A high-level meeting of senior officials of BLW with the representatives of Angola and RITES officials was also held in the Hall of Fame of the Administration Building. The  Chief Design Engineer RR Prasad gave detailed information about the production activities of BLW since its construction till now, present manufacturing facilities, standard certification, export etc.

During the meeting, the delegation was assured that BLW is ready to provide full cooperation in the field of railways. The BLW officials and delegation also shared information related to railways among themselves and also discussed manufacturing of railway engines according to the geographical location of Angola. The delegation was impressed by the design capabilities, construction facilities and cleanliness available at BLW. After the meeting, the loco model was given as a gift to the delegation.

Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer (PME) Prabir Kumar Saha, Principal Chief Electrical Engineer (PCE)  SK Srivastava, Chief Design Engineer (CDE)/Diesel Loco RR  Prasad, Chief Design Engineer/Electric Loco PP Raju, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME)/Production and Marketing Sunil Kumar and Chief Electrical Engineer (CEE)/Loco Arun Kumar Sharma were among those who were present in the meeting. The vote of thanks was proposed by Deputy Chief Marketing Manager Vaibhav Sohane.