Friends of the Rail Forum

Engineers and technicians at the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) Mechanical Engineer’s (MEs) Workshops have saved the country more than US$500 000 in foreign currency by designing and manufacturing a load bank, a critical piece of equipment used in workshops to test locomotives, which is traditionally imported.

A load bank is a machine that mimics a load on wagons to test whether the loco has enough power to pull the load. The test is conducted in static conditions in the workshops before a repaired locomotive is released into service. Putting a loco through the load bank allows engineers and technicians to check whether the repairs have been done properly and the locomotive would be able to pull the load...