MEMU

Last updated
MEMU
RCF MEMU.jpg
A 3rd-generation MEMU train produced by RCF rest at Bandel
Overview
Owner Indian Railways
Area servedIndia
Transit type Regional rail/Commuter rail
Operation
Began operation1995
Operator(s) Indian Railways
Reporting marks IR
Train length12 coaches
Technical
Track gauge 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge
Electrification 25 kV AC Overhead line
Top speed110 km/h (68 mph)

In Indian Railways, a MEMU is an electric multiple unit (EMU) train that serves short and medium-distance routes in India, as compared to normal EMU trains that connect urban and suburban areas. The acronym stands for Mainline Electric Multiple Unit. [1]

Contents

History

Indian Railways (IR) started MEMU service on Asansol – Adra section on 15 July 1995 and on Kharagpur – Tata section on 22 July 1995. Delhi-Panipat MEMU service started on 27 September 1995. Raipur–Durg–Bhatapara–Raipur–Bilaspur MEMU service started on 17 October 1995. Arakkonam-Jolarpettai MEMU service on 22 May 2000. Bankura-Midnapore MEMU started on 30 June 2000. The first 20 coach MEMU ran between Surat to Virar in 2017. Since 2019, 3-phase MEMUs have started replacing existing MEMU rakes. [2]

New 3rd generation was rolled out from RCF Kapurthala with following features:

  1. Ethernet-based Train Control Management System which provides advanced control features
  2. designed for speeds of up to 110 kmph
  3. Energy efficient LED lights have been provided with 50 percent emergency lights in each coach
  4. train is equipped with the latest GPS-based public address and passenger information system in each coach to facilitate passengers with respect to railway stations enroute
  5. train is equipped with 3-phase IGBT-based converter and inverter designed and developed by BHEL
  6. train also features a technologically advanced regenerative braking system.

IR is progressively replacing all locomotive-hauled slow and fast passenger and intercity trains with EMUs. The upgraded trains are re-branded as MEMUs.

Operation

The system uses multiple electrical units [3] [4] operating on 25 kV AC drawn from overhead lines. The trailer coaches have two toilets for passengers and one for the crew.

The train can run up to 200 km (120 mi) between Eastern Ghat and Western Ghat. The rakes have a maximum permitted speed of 105 km/h (65 mph) on broad-gauge tracks. The motorcoaches use DC traction motors. These rakes use asynchronous traction motors and have a maximum designed speed of 110 km/h. These use a stainless steel body. Two of them operate on South Central Railways.

ICF launched new MEMUs capable to operate at 110–130 km/h. The construction cost is 26 crore per unit and can carry 2,618 passengers. This train has a three phase traction motor and operates on 25 kV current which saves 35% energy. It offers GPS-based passenger information systems and announcement in coaches. It has double leaf sliding doors, gangways, CCTV cameras and aluminium luggage racks. The driver's cabin has AC and the coach has an emergency communication facility. It is designed to operate between cities 200–300 km (120–190 mi) away in Uttar Pradesh. The train may start in February 2019. [5]

Manufacturing

MEMU Rakes built by BEML, Bangalore MEMU Rakes built by BEML, Bangalore.jpg
MEMU Rakes built by BEML, Bangalore

MEMUs are manufactured at Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, and Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. Rakes are maintained in the Titlagarh coach maintenance shops.[ citation needed ] Marathwada Rail Coach Factory, Latur is currently trying to ramp up production capacity of 250 MEMU coaches per annum.

Maintenance

MEMU Car Shed and Office in Kollam Junction railway station premises Kollam MEMU Shed, Jan 2017.jpg
MEMU Car Shed and Office in Kollam Junction railway station premises

MEMU Car Sheds are functioning for the maintenance of MEMU rakes in most of the states where the services are operated. MEMU Car Sheds are operational in Avadi, Bangalore, Kollam, [6] Palakkad, Tambaram, Trichy and Vijayawada under Southern Railway.

Rolling stock

MEMU usually uses 8,12 and 16 car coaches, but there are 14,18 and 20 coach configurations too. The trailer coaches have two toilets for passengers and one for the crew. This train can go either fast or slow.

Services

Diesel Electric Multiple Units (DEMU)

ServiceLocaleDistanceAverage speedTravel timeStopsFrequencyRef
Ambala–Amb Andaura Haryana and Himachal Pradesh 213 km (132 mi)41 km/h (25 mph)06h 10m22Twice a day [7]
Amritsar–Attari Punjab 24 km (15 mi)32 km/h (20 mph)00h 45m13Daily [8]
Ara–Sasaram Bihar 97 km (60 mi)28 km/h (17 mph)03h 30m26Daily [9]
Banihal–Baramula DEMU Jammu and Kashmir 135 km (84 mi)58 km/h (36 mph)02h 35m12Daily [10]
Indore–Dr. Ambedkar Nagar Madhya Pradesh 21 km (13 mi)23 km/h (14 mph)0h 55m12Daily [11]
Indore–Ratlam Madhya Pradesh 115 km (71 mi)44 km/h (27 mph)02h 40m13Daily [12]
Jalandhar City–Amritsar Punjab 79 km (49 mi)39 km/h (24 mph)01h 50m13Daily [13]
Mahesana–Abu Road DEMU Gujarat and Rajasthan 117 km (73 mi)37 km/h (23 mph)00h 55m15Daily [14]
Nizamabad–Kacheguda Telangana 166 km (103 mi)40 km/h (25 mph)04h 10m12Thrice a day [15]
Raichur–Gadwal–Kacheguda Karnataka and Telangana 60 km (37 mi)60 km/h (37 mph)01h 00m8Daily [16]
Rajgir–Bakhtiyarpur Bihar 54 km (34 mi)22 km/h (14 mph)02h 25m5Daily [17]
Ratlam–Laxmibai Nagar Madhya Pradesh 115 km (71 mi)45 km/h (28 mph)02h 45m14Daily [18]
Rohtak–Rewari Haryana 81 km (50 mi)40 km/h (25 mph)02h 00m13Daily [19]
Sabarmati–Mahesana Gujarat 63 km (39 mi)47 km/h (29 mph)01h 20m7Daily [20]
Sabarmati–Patan Gujarat 103 km (64 mi)40 km/h (25 mph)02h 35m7Daily [21]
Vasai Road–Diva Maharashtra 40 km (25 mi)46 km/h (29 mph)00h 52m5Daily [22]

Electric Multiple Units (EMU)

ServiceLocaleDistanceAverage speedTravel timeStopsFrequencyRef
Chennai–Tirupati Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu 147 km (91 mi)37 km/h (23 mph)04h 00m25Daily [23]
Dahod–Ratlam Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh 114 km (71 mi)47 km/h (29 mph)03h 05m12Daily [24]
Falaknuma–Bhuvanagiri Telangana 46 km (29 mi)24 km/h (15 mph)01h 50m15Daily [25]
Panvel–Dahanu Road MEMU Maharashtra 136 km (85 mi)41 km/h (25 mph)03h 25m19Daily [26]
Panvel–Vasai Road Maharashtra 63 km (39 mi)46 km/h (29 mph)01h 35m10Daily [27]
Rajgir–Danapur Bihar 109 km (68 mi)24 km/h (15 mph)04h 35m21Daily [28]
Sealdah–Berhampore Court West Bengal 186 km (116 mi)44 km/h (27 mph)04h 15m23Daily [29]
Ujjain–Nagda Madhya Pradesh 56 km (35 mi)39 km/h (24 mph)01h 25m6Daily [30]
Virar–Bharuch Gujarat and maharashtra 267 km (166 mi)37 km/h (23 mph)06h 45m39Daily [31]
Whitefield–KSR Bengaluru City Karnataka 23 km (14 mi)35 km/h (22 mph)00h 40m12Daily [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala</span> Building in India

The Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala is a coach manufacturing unit of the Indian Railways in the Indian state of Punjab. It was set up in the year 1985 with an investment of ₹423 crore in order to enhance production capacity for India's railways and generate employment for the youth of the state. The unit is located on the Jalandhar-Firozpur railway line, and currently, has the job of manufacturing new LHB and MEMU coaches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avantika Superfast Express</span> Express train service between Mumbai Central and Indore Junction

The 12961 / 12962 Avantika Superfast Express is a Superfast train belonging to Indian Railways that runs between Mumbai Central and Indore Junction in India. It is a daily service. It operates as train number 12961 from Mumbai Central to Indore and as train number 12962 in the reverse direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cochin Harbour Terminus</span> Railway station in Kochi, Kerala

Cochin Harbour Terminus is an NSG–6 category Indian railway station in Thiruvananthapuram railway division of Southern Railway zone. It is one of the railway stations in the city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India. During the peak time of the station, 17 trains operated from here to different parts of the country and served as the principal station providing rail connectivity to the southern segment of the Port of Kochi located on the Willingdon Island. The station, which has not been in use after the commissioning of Vallarpadam container terminus is now locked and all the train service to the station from Ernakulam Junction were completely stopped in 2013. Since then, only occasional tourist trains carrying passengers will arrive at the station – notably the Golden Chariot in 2022.

<i>August Kranti Rajdhani Express</i> Train in India

The 12953 / 12954 August Kranti Tejas Rajdhani Express is a Rajdhani class train of Indian Railways, which connects Mumbai Central in Mumbai, Maharashtra with Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi, the national capital of India. It is named on the honor of August Kranti Maidan from where the Quit India Movement was launched on 8 August 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slow and fast passenger trains in India</span> Passenger train services of Indian Railways

The Slow and fast passenger trains are passenger train services of Indian Railways which connect small towns and cities to metropolitan cities in India. The classification Passenger means it is an ordinary passenger train which halts at all or most of the stations on the railway routes. Currently, a total of 3572 passenger trains are running of all railway zones of Indian Railways.

The 19303/19304 Indore - Bhopal Express also known as Raatrani Express is an express train which runs between Indore Junction railway station of Indore, the largest city & commercial hub of Central Indian state Madhya Pradesh and Bhopal Junction railway station of Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

The Indore–Ujjain Passenger is a passenger train of the Indian Railways, which runs between Indore Junction railway station of Indore, the largest city and commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh and Ujjain Junction railway station of Ujjain, the 5th largest city and cultural capital of Madhya Pradesh

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kamakhya Junction railway station</span> Railway station in Assam, India

Kamakhya Junction Railway Station is a railway junction station located at Maligaon in Guwahati in the Indian state of Assam.

Jalandhar City Junction is a railway station located in Jalandhar district in the Indian state of Punjab and serves Jalandhar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meerut City Junction railway station</span> Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh, India

Meerut City Junction railway station, is the main railway station in the city of Meerut. It is a junction of Meerut–Bulandshahr–Khurja line and Delhi–Meerut–Saharanpur line. Double lining of Meerut–Saharanpur section is on full swing.

The 19307/19308 Indore–Chandigarh Express is an Express train belonging to Indian Railways – Western Railway zone that runs between Indore Junction and Chandigarh Junction in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucknow Junction–Anand Vihar Terminal Double Decker Express</span>

The 12583 / 12584 Lucknow Jn.–Anand Vihar Terminal AC Double Decker Express is an Indian Railways train running between Lucknow Junction and Anand Vihar Terminal. It is the ninth double decker train in India and is the first such service for the state of Uttar Pradesh. The train operates four days a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays from both ends. After Lucknow Mail, Lucknow–New Delhi AC Superfast Express, Lucknow Swarna Shatabdi Express and Gomti Express, it is the fifth dedicated train service between the national capital and the state capital of Uttar Pradesh. The other train service is by IRCTC by the name of Lucknow - New Delhi Tejas Express.

Dahod railway station is a railway station serving Dahod town, in Dahod district of Gujarat state of India. It is under Ratlam railway division of Western Railway zone of Indian Railways. It is located on New Delhi–Mumbai main line of the Indian Railways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Mal Junction railway station</span> Railway Station in West Bengal, India

New Mal Junction is the major and very important among two railway stations which serves Malbazar town, the other being Malbazar Railway Station. This station is commonly known as Mal, It lies in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. New Mal Junction lies on two railway line New Jalpaiguri–Alipurduar–Samuktala Road line and is the originating point of New Mal–Changrabandha–New Cooch Behar line. New Mal is the headquarter station of Sub-Divisional Railway officer designated as Assistant Divisional Engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akola–Ratlam line</span> Railway route in India

The Akola–Ratlam rail line is a railway line in India linking Akola in Maharashtra with Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh. As of January 2023, Ratlam to Dr. Ambedkar Nagar, Sanawad to Khandwa and Akot to Akola Has been Completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sri Lanka Railways S13</span> Trainset

Sri Lanka Railways Class S13 is a Diesel-Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) trainset, built for Sri Lanka Railways by Integral Coach Factory, Chennai and imported through RITES, an Indian Railways PSU on a line of credit extended by the Indian Government in 2011. Sri Lanka Railways Ordered for 6 modern state of the art DEMU trainsets in 2017. Class S13 possess AC First, Second and Third Class accommodations. The first trainset of the order arrived Sri Lanka in December 2018.

Khachrod railway station is a railway station of Ratlam division, Western Railways situated on the very middle of Mumbai–Delhi main line. Its code is KUH. It serves Khachrod city. The station consists of two platforms. Passenger, MEMU, Express, and Superfast trains have the stoppages at Khachrod.

Naroda railway station is a railway station on Ahmedabad–Udaipur Line under the Ahmedabad railway division of Western Railway zone. This is situated at GIDC, Naroda in Ahmedabad of the Indian state of Gujarat.

A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train control. Although multiple units consist of several carriages, single self-propelled carriages, such as railbuses and trams – are in fact multiple-units when two or more of them are working connected through multiple-unit train control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Delhi–Varanasi Vande Bharat Express</span> Vande Bharat Express train route in India

The 22436/22435 New Delhi - Varanasi Jn Vande Bharat Express is India's 1st semi-high speed, electric multiple unit train, connecting the states of New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

References

  1. TTI. "MEMU Trains in India". Total Train Info. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  2. "3-phase MEMU to replace conventional DC rakes soon". The Hindu. 3 October 2019.
  3. "SCR starts 2 Memu trains". The Times of India . July 20, 2011. Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
  4. Express News Service (December 9, 2011). "Corporation adamant on saving MEMU dream". CNN-IBM. Archived from the original on March 18, 2013. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
  5. New Train 18-like MEMU for North India! Indian Railways rolls out 130 kmph train for short-distance travel
  6. "MEMU to be extended to Malabar; Passenger trains to be replaced with MEMU". english.mathrubhumi.com. 2019-10-28. Retrieved 2019-10-28.
  7. "10 trains including Shatabdi to remain off-tracks on oct 5". Dailypost. 1 September 2019.
  8. Press Trust of India (12 October 2015). "Punjab Chief Minister to Hold Talks With Protesting Farmers". NDTV.
  9. "आरा-सासाराम के लिए दो नई पैसेंजर ट्रेन आज से -". Jagran (in Hindi). Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  10. Ministry of Railways (4 September 2015). "Shri Suresh Prabhu Flags Off Andaman Express Through Remote Control From Jammu Tawi to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra". Press Information Bureau, Government of India (Press release).
  11. "WR declare closure of Fatehabad-Indore & Fatehabad-Ujjain MG Section for GC works". RailNews. 24 February 2014.
  12. "All DEMU train will go to Indore from June 14". Freepress Journal. Archived from the original on 29 May 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  13. "Didn't see, feel anything amiss during mishap near Amritsar, say passengers on same train". Indian Express. 25 October 2018.
  14. Shah, Jay. "79437/Mahesana - Abu Road DEMU - Mahesana to Abu Road WR/Western Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  15. "NZB/Nizamabad to KCG/Hyderabad Kacheguda: 23 Trains". India Rail Info. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  16. "Raichur-Kacheguda railway line inaugurated by minister". The Times of India. 2013-10-13. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  17. "73253/Rajgir–Bakhtiyarpur DEMU". India Rail Info. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  18. F P News Service (2 October 2015). "Indore Ratlam DEMU to start today". The Free Press Journal. Archived from the original on 29 May 2016.
  19. "India's first CNG train for the Rewari-Rohtak section - India's first CNG train". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  20. "Demand For Train And Rail Facilities In Jalore-Sirohi Is Impractical – जालोर-सिरोही में रेलगाड़ी और रेल सुविधाओं की मांग 'अव्यावहारिक' | Patrika News". patrika.com. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  21. Himansh. "09369/Sabarmati - Patan DEMU Special - Sabarmati BG to Patan WR/Western Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  22. "Several new trains proposed in Railway Budget". The Times of India. Retrieved 2017-09-04.
  23. "Rail Budget 2013: Andhra Pradesh to get 8 express trains, 4 new lines". The Times of India . 27 February 2013. Archived from the original on 2 March 2013.
  24. "मेमू का बे्रक फेल, रेड सिग्नल क्रॉस -". Nai Dunia (in Hindi). 2017-07-12. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  25. "Meagre allocation for projects in Telangana". The New Indian Express . 27 February 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  26. "Vasai-Panvel track nod by September end | mumbai news". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2017-09-05.
  27. "Several new trains proposed in Railway Budget". The Times of India. 2011-02-25. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  28. Anand, Siddharth. "63339/Rajgir - Danapur MEMU - Rajgir to Danapur ECR/East Central Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  29. PATRANABIS, SREERUP. "63105/Sealdah - Lalgola MEMU - Sealdah to Berhampore Court ER/Eastern Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  30. Jayashree. "69185/Nagda - Ujjain MEMU - Nagda to Ujjain WR/Western Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  31. "19102/Bharuch–Virar MEMU". India Rail Info.
  32. M, Yash. "66541/Whitefield - KSR Bengaluru MEMU - Whitefield to Bangalore SWR/South Western Zone - Railway Enquiry". indiarailinfo.com. Retrieved 2024-02-01.