AUSTRALIA: RITES is developing a standard-gauge diesel locomotive prototype for an Australian customer by adapting an in-service Indian Railways unit, with testing and customer validation expected once the prototype is ready.

Indian Railways WDG-3A diesel locomotive on track at Kochuveli railway station in Kerala.
Indian Railways WDG-3A diesel locomotive at Kochuveli railway station, Kerala. Illustrative photo. Photo: Navaneeth Krishnan S, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rahul Mithal, RITES chairman and managing director, told Mint that the company is working with Indian Railways on the prototype. India’s main network uses 1,676-mm broad gauge, while the export version is being designed for the 1,435-mm standard gauge used across much of the international rail market.

The RITES standard-gauge locomotive project is focused on redesigning the locomotive’s running gear while retaining the proven powertrain and other critical systems. RITES has not disclosed the locomotive class, the Australian customer, the testing location or a detailed validation programme.

Running gear is the core engineering change

An earlier RITES procurement provides useful technical context. A 2020 Government of India tender sought two standard-gauge fabricated bogie frame assemblies for 3,000/4,500 HHP diesel-electric standard-gauge locomotives at Diesel Locomotive Works in Varanasi for the export market.

That tender does not establish that the same bogie design is being used for the Australian prototype. It does, however, show that dedicated standard-gauge bogie hardware has already formed part of RITES’s export-locomotive development work.

For the present project, the confirmed engineering boundary is narrower: the running gear is being redesigned, while the powertrain and other critical systems are intended to remain. That distinction is central to the commercial concept, because RITES is trying to adapt locomotives that still have usable operating life rather than replace every major system.

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Testing will decide whether the design can be repeated

Mithal said the Australian prototype is expected to be ready shortly for testing and validation. RITES sees customer approval as the step that would allow the design to be offered to other standard-gauge markets with relatively few further modifications.

That remains conditional. Australia’s National Transport Commission said in June 2026 that rolling-stock testing requirements and test locations still differ among rail infrastructure managers, while work continues on a streamlined freight-locomotive registration process.

Because RITES has not identified the Australian customer or the network on which the locomotive would operate, the exact acceptance and certification path cannot be verified from public information. Customer validation should therefore not be read as a nationwide Australian approval.

For now, the project’s confirmed sequence is clear: an in-service broad-gauge Indian locomotive is being adapted to 1,435-mm standard gauge, then tested and validated for its Australian customer. Wider export use depends on that validation.

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