- The Minister of Transportation, Sa’idu Alkali, has revealed that the Federal Government had commenced the conversion of railway locomotive engines.
- He explained that when completed, the engine would run on 70 per cent gas and 30 per cent on diesel.
The Minister of Transportation, Sa’idu Alkali, has revealed that the Federal Government had commenced the conversion of railway locomotive engines from diesel to Compressed Natural Gas.
A locomotive engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight trains.
The minister stated this during an inspection of the retrofitting exercise at Idu train station in Abuja recently.
The minister further stated that the conversion of the engines would use both diesel and CNG. He explained that when completed, the engine would run on 70 per cent gas and 30 per cent on diesel.
He said, “We started in the last one month. Nigeria is the first African country to convert diesel engines to gas. The engine will work 30 per cent on diesel and 70 per cent on gas. At the time you want to start the locomotive, you use diesel, but after starting it, you switch to gas, and then it will keep on moving.
“We have interacted with the engineers and the process is at an advanced stage and we are going to test-run the engine and then determine when we will start rolling out the CNG locomotives.”
According to the minister, the process will start with the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor since the conversion workshop is located in Abuja, promising that the expansion will spread to other corridors in the country.
“We want to start with Kaduna, Abuja, because the workshop is in Abuja here once we finish the retrofitting, we will then continue with all the remaining corridors.”
He noted that the Federal Government has chosen gas as the country’s transition fuel as it aims to achieve zero-emission by 2050.