Economical and sustainable
In July 2013, Lithuanian Railways launched a joint project with Siemens, Baltic Marine Group and mtu to overhaul the 44 locomotives and engines. By September 2015, all of the engines, each of which had completed roughly 24,000 hours of service to date, had to be successively removed from the locomotives at the Vilnius depot and sent by truck to the mtu Reman Technology Centre in Magdeburg, mtu’s lead facility worldwide for standardized reman processes. The plant specializes in remanufacturing, i.e. standardized industrial reconditioning and complete overhaul of mtu engines. The advantage of reman engines is that they cost less than new units but have the same warranty. What is more, in the course of the complete overhaul, each engine benefits from all technical upgrades so that clients can be certain they are receiving a product with the very latest technical advances. In Magdeburg, the incoming engines are made fit and ready for a new life. The first part of the process is to completely dismantle and examine them. Wear parts and elastomer or defective components are replaced, but the majority of the engine parts such as cylinder heads, crankshafts or the crankcase are reconditioned – which is a sustainable process because no raw materials have to be used to produce new components. After successfully completing a bench test, the engines are also repainted, which means they not only meet the same specifications as an equivalent model just off the production line, they also look brand new. Just like the reman unit in locomotive number ER 20032. The Eurorunner’s 2,000 kW traction unit shines brightly in its freshly applied blue livery and is once again fully prepared for service on Lithuanian freight routes.
