The Indian locomotive class WCM-4 is a class of 1.5 kVDCelectric locomotives that was developed in 1956 by Vulcan Foundry and English Electric for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), Direct Current (C), Mixed traffic (M) engine, 4th generation (4). They entered service in 1961. A total of 7 WCM-4 locomotives was built at England between 1956 and 1957.
The WCM-4 served both passenger and freight trains for over 39 years. With the introduction of more modern types of locomotives and 25 KV AC electrification, all were withdrawn in early 2000s after repeated failures. Today Sadly all locomotives have been Scrapped.
History
Indian Railways decided to procure 7 locomotives from Hitachi. They are manufactured in Japan and shipped to India in 1957. These locomotives had now common Co-Co wheel arrangement.[1] Initially the WCM-4 class were known as EM/4 class.[2] They were easily recognizable with their larger size and normal light enclosures for the marker lights and the tail lamps (just above the buffers). They had their cab doors placed near the cab unlike the WCM-1 class. The WCM-4 is a more powerful and larger version of the WCM-3 class. They were intended for hauling superfast train in Central Railway CR. But after sometime they were relegated to freight duties only.
They began their CR zone service in 1961.The WCM-3 locomotives were used on many Express trains but had some problems and were relegated to hauling low speed passenger trains, shunting and freight duties only. In mid 1990s Central Railways decided to withdraw these locomotive from services and all units were scrapped with non preserved.
