G V Joshi
The best way to judge the progress of any country is by looking at its railway connectivity. The much awaited dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring high-speed trains to India is going to become a reality soon.
The first high speed train with a speed of 160 kilometer per hour (Km/H) is expected to run on Delhi-Agra section in November 2014, as the first rake of fourteen coaches of the train suitable for high speed will be ready in November.
The international definition of high-speed rail embraces new lines with a top speed of at least 250 km/h and existing lines with a top speed of around 200 km/h. In the words of Parmod Kumar General Manager of Kapurthala Rail Coach Factory (RCF), “Work was going on at fast pace to roll out the first rake by the end of October so that the high speed train could run on Delhi-Agra section in November’s first week.”
Installation of smoke and fire alarms, automatic closing of inner doors and TV system in the executive chair cars with LED sets on the back of the seat as in International air lines has been completed.
The railway authorities had already conducted a trial on these coaches on Delhi-Agra section at a speed of 160 Km/H and covered the 200 kilometer distance in 99 minutes. Newspaper headlines dubbed it a “semi-bullet train”. The popular English name bullet train is a literal translation of the Japanese term ‘dangan ressha’, a nickname given to the Shinkansen network of highspeed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group companies. The name stuck because of its resemblance to a bullet and its high speed.
The front-end of the Bullet train is modeled after the beak of kingfishers, which dive from the air into bodies of water with very little splash to catch fish. This resulted not only in a quieter train, but 15% less electricity use even while the train travels 10% faster. Starting with the Tôkaidô Shinkansen (515.4 km) in 1964, the network has expanded to currently consist of 2,387.7 km of lines with maximum speeds of 240–320 km/h, 283.5 km of Mini-shinkansen lines with a maximum speed of 130 km/h currently. Modi travelled by bullet train in Japan in 2012, taking one to visit a Suzuki plant in Hamamatsu and meet Indian engineers working there.
In 2009, the then railways minister Lalu Yadav also took a bullet train in Tokyo. Such trains are low on carbon emissions and that is one good reason for seriously considering the issue. Environment should be taken into account in taking such decisions.
As of today, India has one of the largest rail networks in the world but does not have any highspeed rail (HSR) lines capable of supporting speeds of 200 Km/H or more. Railways have selected ten routes on which such high speed trains would be run. The initial speed of these trains would be 160 Km/H and gradually the speed would be raised up to 200 KPH. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the 2014 election, has promised to build the Diamond Quadrilateral project – connecting four major cities of India (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) located in four edges of the country with high speed trains. This is modelled on the completed Golden Quadrilateral mega highway project. In 1845, along with Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy,
Hon. Jaganath Shunkerseth (known as Nana Shankarsheth) formed the Indian Railway Association. Eventually, the association was incorporated into the then Great Indian Peninsula (GIP) Railway now Central. Jejeebhoy and Shankarsheth became the only two Indians among the ten directors of the GIP railways. As a director, Shankarsheth participated in the very first train journey in India between Bombay and Thane on the 16th of April, 1853 in a 14 carriage long train drawn by 3 locomotives named Sultan, Sindh and Sahib. It was around 34 km in length and took approximately 45 minutes.
In 1969, The Rajdhani Express was introduced with speeds up to 140 km/h, a great achievement at the time. The top speed has remained almost the same for the last 45 years. Indian Railways are is one of the world’s largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km of track over a route of 65,436 km and 7,172 stations. The Indian Government began to consider the possibility of high-speed rail even before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. In December 2013, a Japanese consortium was given a $5.73 million contract to study the feasibility of a high-speed rail link between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
They are to finish the study by July 2015, “including such work as projecting demand, estimating operating expenses and formulating basic plans.” Indian Railways has set up a corporation called High Speed Rail Corporation of India Ltd (HSRC) on 25 July 2012 that will exclusively deal with the proposed high-speed rail corridor projects. The corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL), a company that carries out the construction works for Indian Railways. The corporation was officially formed on 29 October 2013.
Indian railways has asked IIT Kharagpur to conduct research to obtain the technological knowhow to increase the maximum attainable speed to 200 km/h. The project, which will be conducted in the Railway Research Centre of IIT Kharagpur, has four main goals; improving speed, improving carrying capacity (heavy haul), use of advanced material, advanced signalling and maintenance for better safety. The research is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.
Does India need high-speed trains with speeds above 350 Km/H and can the country afford them? The cost of operating such high-speed trains, as in Japan and a few other countries, was prohibitive. “It will cost Rs 200 crore to lay a km of rail line for such trains against Rs 3-4 crore for ordinary trains.
One of the first proposals to introduce highspeed trains in India was mooted in the mid-1980s by then Railway Minister Madhavrao Scindia. A high-speed rail line between Delhi and Kanpur via Agra was proposed.
An internal study found the proposal not to be viable at that time due to the high cost of construction and inability of travelling passengers to bear much higher fares than those for normal trains. The railways instead introduced Shatabdi trains which ran at 130 km/h.
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