KOLKATA: India’s premier electric locomotive manufacturer Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW), on Wednesday, launched the first locomotive in the country’s history capable of hauling trains at a speed of 200 km/hr. The country’s first electric locomotive manufacturer in West Bengal has been manufacturing 5,400HP WAP-5 locomotives for passenger trains for long. These locomotives can attain speeds of 160 km/hr.“The WAP-5 was redesigned and it is now aerodynamic to reduce air drag at higher speeds. This makes them more energy efficient and dynamically stable during high-speed operations. The driver desk has also been ergonomically re-modified to improve the conditions of loco pilots. The gear arrangement has also been modified accordingly to allow a maximum speed of 200 km/hr. These locomotives will be used to haul trains like the Rajdhani, Gatiman and Shatabdi Expresses,” a senior CLW official said.The locomotive also has crew voice and video recording system (CVVRS) for on-board driving data recording and analysis. Under this system, cameras with microphones are provided at critical positions both inside and outside the locomotive to record voice and audio signals for post event analysis and storing of data in a digital format. CLW, which claims to be the largest locomotive manufacturer in the world under a single roof churned out 350 locomotives in 2017-2018.Apart from its main workshop, CLW has a unit in Dankuni. In 2017-18, CLW built 325 locomotives in West Bengal and helped the Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) in Varanasi manufacture 25 more. It also helped the Diesel Loco Modernisation Works (DMW) build two more. In 2018-19, CLW is likely to build more locomotives. It was announced in the budget by finance minister Arun Jaitley earlier this year that the railways would need 573 electric locomotives this year. Most of these will be built by CLW and many of those will be the WAP-5s capable of running at 200 km/hr.