courtesy  :  wikipedia

high speed rail

High-speed rail (HSR) in India is currently under construction and the country does not have high-speed rail corridors, or lines operating at 200 km/h (120 mph) or above 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 the Gatimaan Express with a top operating speed of 160 km/h (99 mph).^[4]

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]

Background

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

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]

Speed	Type	Length
<160 km/h (99 mph)	Conventional rail	59,274 km (36,831 mi)
>160 and <200 km/h (99 and 124 mph)	Semi-high-speed rail	8,682 km (5,395 mi)
>200 km/h (120 mph)	High-speed rail	508 km (316 mi)(under construction)

History[edit]

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]

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]

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]

First proposal

One of the first proposals to introduce high-speed 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 to not be viable at that time due to the high cost of construction and the inability of passengers to bear much higher fares than those for normal trains. In a feasibility study published in 1987, RDSO and JICA estimated the construction costs to be ₹4.9 crore per km, for a line dedicated to 250–300 km/h trains. In 2010, the 1987-estimated cost, inflated at 10% a year, would be ₹43.9 crore per km (US$9.5 million/km).^[17] The railways instead introduced Shatabdi trains which ran at 140 km/h.^[18]

Route plans

The Indian Ministry of Railways‘ white-paper “Vision 2020”,^[19] submitted to The Parliament of India on 18 December 2009,^[20] envisaged the implementation of regional high-speed rail projects to provide services at 250–350 km/h, and planning for corridors connecting commercial, tourist, and pilgrimage hubs. Six corridors were identified for technical studies on setting up of high-speed rail corridors: Delhi–Chandigarh–Amritsar, Pune–Mumbai–Ahmedabad, Hyderabad–Warangal–Vijayawada–Chennai, Howrah–Haldia, Chennai–Bengaluru–Coimbatore–Kochi–Thiruvananthapuram, Delhi–Agra–Kanpur–Lucknow–Varanasi–Patna-Guwahati. These high-speed rail corridors were planned to be built as elevated corridors.

NHRCL formation

Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL) had set up a corporation called High Speed Rail Corporation of India Ltd (HSRC) on 25 July 2013, which would deal with the proposed high-speed rail corridor projects. The corporation was a wholly-owned subsidiary of RVNL.^[21][22] It was supposed to handle the tendering, pre-feasibility studies, awarding of contracts, and execution of the projects.^[23] The corporation will comprise four members, all of whom will be railway officials.^[24] All high-speed rail lines will be implemented as public–private partnerships on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate, and Transfer (DBFOT) basis.^[25] The corporation was officially formed on 29 October 2013.^[26] Later on 12 February 2016, the Ministry of Railways replaced it with the ‘National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited‘. It acted as a government company to administer the construction and operation of high-speed rail corridors.^[27]

First construction

Construction of the Mumbai–Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor, India’s first high-speed rail corridor, was initiated in 2017 and is expected to be completed by 2028. The foundation stone ceremony was held on 14 September 2018 when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, flagged off the construction work in Ahmedabad. The JR East/Hitachi E5 Series Shinkansen trains will be used in this line. It has a maximum operational speed of 320 km/h and an average speed of 260 km/h.^[8]

Network

In India, trains in the future with top speeds of 300–350 km/h, are envisaged to run on elevated corridors to isolate high-speed train tracks and thereby prevent trespassing by animals or people. The current conventional lines between Amritsar-New Delhi, and Ahmedabad-Mumbai runs through suburban and rural areas, which are flat and have no tunnels. The Ahmedabad-Mumbai line runs near the coast and therefore, has more bridges, and parts of it are in backwaters or forests. The 1987 RDSO/JICA feasibility study found the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line to be the most promising.^[17]

  Under Construction   Proposed   Approved