SRI LANKA Railways put into service at the beginning of December the first of four refurbished diesel locos which are being rebuilt with Caterpillar 3516 engines at a cost of around Rs45m each. The Hitachi-built Class M5 locos are being rebuilt by Caterpillar’s local agent United Tractor & Equipment Ltd with technical assistance from Zeppelin Baumaschinen GmbH of Germany.
Zeppelin is providing engines, driveshafts, couplings and other accessories. It also designed the subframe to carry the new engine. UTE and Adtranz had previously rebuilt 10 Henschel diesel locos with Caterpillar 3312 engines.
