Services done to Sri Lanka Railway
In order to improve the train service in year 2000, ten Class M9 locomotives were imported from ALSTOM France. These were the first set of SLR locomotives having AC-AC traction system with microprocessor based control systems. As the new technology was not well known repairs and maintenance work was not done as required and eight locomotives were out of operation for last few years.
A request was made to ITI in September 2009 to inspect the standstill M9 locomotives at the electro loco shade at Maradana. The faulty units were identified as – the VIKING units (engine controller), CRT Units (the driver units of the IGBT’s) and the Dynamic resister grids (used for dynamic braking). Among these units the VIKING unit is the most important part because it is used to drive and control the engine of the locomotive.
In spite of inadequate technical information except for the User Manual, ITI engineers diagnosed the faults and repaired the three units within a reasonable time frame. As a result SLR was able to launce another M9 locomotive for service which help a lot to keep on going service to the public.
