courtesy  :  wikipedia

High-speed rail in India

High-speed rail (HSR) in India is currently under construction and the country does not have high-speed rail corridors, or lines operating at over 200 km/h (120 mph) currently under UIC definition.^[1] However, a total of twelve corridors are planned and one of the corridor which links Mumbai and Ahmedabad is under construction.^[2] As of 2021, the fastest train of India is Vande Bharat Express with a top speed of 180 km/h (110 mph) which it attained during a trial run.^[3] While the fastest operating train is Gatimaan Express with a top operating speed of 160 km/h (99 mph).^[4]

E5 series set, which will be a rolling stock for Indian high-speed rail corridors.

Vande Bharat Express set, the rolling stock for Indian Semi high-speed rail corridors during its launch.

The first high-speed railway corridor of length 508 km is currently under construction between Mumbai and Ahmedabad at a top operational speed of 320 km/h (200 mph) along the western coast.^[5][6] The corridor will use Standard gauge line and will be built with Shinkansen technology. It is expected to carry passengers between the two cities in just three hours and the ticket prices are expected to be cheaper than aeroplanes i.e. ₹2,500 – ₹3,000. This project which was initially targeted for completion by December 2023, will now be completed by 2028, owing to COVID Pandemic and land acquisition concerns for the section which falls in Maharashtra. However, a portion of this line is planned to be opened by 2026.^[7][8]

At the 2014 general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had voiced its desire to build the Diamond Quadrilateral high speed rail project, which would connect the cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai via high-speed rail.^[9] This project was approved as a priority for the new government in the incoming president’s speech.^[10] Construction of one kilometre of high speed railway track will cost ₹100 crore (US$13 million) – ₹140 crore (US$19 million) which is 10-14 times higher than the cost of construction of standard railway.^[11]

India will have two types of gauges for high speed rail. The new high-speed rail lines with Japanese technology will be in Standard gauge, whereas older tracks upgraded to high-speed rail standard will be in 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge. For this reason, there will be no interoperability between newly laid tracks and the older-upgraded tracks for passenger and cargo traffic.

Definition and terminology[edit]

According to the Ministry of Railways, a route which has trains that run between 160 and 200 km/h (99 and 124 mph), is considered as Higher Speed or Semi High Speed Rail line, while the routes which have trains running at speeds of less than 160 km/h (99 mph) are considered as conventional rail lines.^[12] According to UIC definition, the commercial speed of over 200 km/h (120 mph) is the principal criterion for the definition of High-speed railways.^[1]

During the steam era of Indian railways, the trains barely managed to reach the speeds of 90 km/h mark. It was only until the introduction of WP class locomotive in the 1940s which managed to approach the speeds of 100 km/h.^[13] The first leap from steam technology happened when the electrification was completed in Bombay Division. WCP-1 class electric locomotives were used to haul the coaches with a speed beyond 100 km/h and they had a theoretical maximum speed of 120 km/h. But due to the intervening of world wars, Indian railways were unable to introduce electrification beyond the Bombay Division and hence steam locomotives dominated the lines in the rest of India.^[13] The era of Diesel locomotives took its shape in the 1960s when Indian Railways imported WDM-1 and WDM-2 class locomotives from the American company, ALCO. Although the WDM-1 struggled to cross the 100 km/h speed mark, the subsequent introduction of WDM-2 and WDM-4 locomotives did the job for the most of the decade.^[13]

India made its tryst with high-speed rail by inaugurating the Howrah Rajdhani Express back in March 1969, five years after Japan inaugurated Shinkansen, the world’s first high-speed rail which was running at twice the speed of Rajdhani Express.^[14] With the initiation of various electrification projects in the 1970s on the trunk routes, the electric locomotives soon began to replace their Diesel counterparts. The WAP-1 electric locomotive broke the record to be the fastest locomotive in India during the 1980s, touching a maximum speed of 160 km/h during the trial runs and was certified for commercial operations at 140 km/h. The first service to reach a maximum speed of 140 km/h was WAP-1 hauled Shatabdi Express from New Delhi to Jhansi in 1989.^[13]

WAP-5 locomotive in operation.

After Indian railways realised that the DC powered locomotives would soon be overtaken by AC ones, they introduced the AC powered WAP-5 class locomotives, a first of its kind in India. These locomotives were imported to serve the purpose of services on fast, short trains like the Shatabdi Express. They also featured fully suspended traction motors reducing the impact on tracks and allowing faster speeds. The first batch of these locomotives arrived in India in 1995 and was set to operate at speeds of 130 km/h. During the trial runs, this locomotive reached a record speed of 184 km/h which made it the fastest locomotive in India.^[13]

India’s first indigenously developed EMU train at New Delhi railway station.

Indian railways achieved the next breakthrough in the late 2010s when the WAP-5 hauled Gatimaan Express became the fastest commercially operated semi-high-speed train in India, in April 2016, with a maximum operational speed of 160 km/h.^[15] Two years later, Indian railways saw another breakthrough as they successfully developed the first indigenously built, semi-high-speed, EMU train, the Vande Bharat Express. This train attained a speed of 180 km/h during the trial run and was designed to run at a maximum speed of 200 km/h, but due to the speed limitations on old tracks, the train’s operational speed is restricted to 130 km/h.^[16]