On Monday, the Indian Railways' most powerful 12000 HP Made in India locomotive took its first run between Deen Dayal Upadhaya and Shivpur stations in Uttar Pradesh. Built by French company Alstom under the government's Make in India programme at the Railways' Madhepura factory in Bihar, these engines are the highest-powered locomotives to run on Indian rails.

With the dedication of this powerful locomotive, India has now become the sixth country in the world to join an elite club of countries producing the high powerful locomotive.

The locomotive has been named as WAG12 with number 60027, a railway official said. The first train, consisting of 118 wagons, using the locomotive departed from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Station at 2:08 pm for Dhanbad division of East Central Railway.

The locomotive is capable of working on railway tracks with conventional OHE lines as well as on Dedicated Freight corridors with high rise OHE lines. The locomotive has air-conditioned driver cabs on either side. The locomotive is equipped with regenerative braking system which provides substantial energy savings during operations. These high horse power locomotives will help to decongest the saturated tracks by improving average speed of freight trains

The Madhepura Electric Loco Factory is capable of building 120 locomotives every year. The factory will manufacture 800 such locomotives in the next 11 years. It is expected to create more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs.

The scope also includes setting up of a manufacturing plant at Madhepura (Bihar) for building the e-locos and two maintenance depots at Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh and Nagpur, Maharashtra.