Mumbai-Delhi in 7 hours by 200-kmph High Speed Trains

Railways to reduce travel time on Delhi-Mumbai corridor

PTI | Jan 25, 2012, 04.51PM IST

 high-speed train proposal, Railways have joined hands with Japan to begin the ground work to reduce travel time by half on the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

Railways will procure a new set of trains with electric locomotives to run on the existing Delhi-Mumbai track.

"The pre-feasibility study for running train at a maximum speed of 160-200 km per hour is being carried out by Japan on the existing Delhi-Mumbai route and they (Japan) will submit the report next month," said a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project named Golden Rail Corridor.

Currently, Mumbai Rajdhanis run at an average speed of 100 km per hour and take about 15 hours to reach the destination.

"Our aim is to reduce the travel time by almost half between Delhi-Mumbai and for this we have to procure train sets to run at higher speed on the existing track," the official said.

Train sets are like EMU trains consisting of self-propelled electric locomotive and 10 to 12 modern coaches.

"Since our existing locomotives are not designed to run on 200 km speed we have to go for the train set in the Golden Rail Corridor," he said, adding "We have to strengthen the track, bridges and modernise the signalling system before increasing the speed to 200 km per hour."

There will be a new fare structure for the high-speed train for the Golden Rail Corridor.

Asked how the existing track will take the load of new trains, he said, "All the freight trains will be shifted from Mumbai-Delhi route after the commissioning of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor. So, we will utilise the additional capacity of the existing track for the train sets."

The Western DFC is likley to be commissioned by 2016-17.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Railways-to-reduce-travel-time-on-Delhi-Mumbai-corridor/articleshow/11629264.cms

High-speed trains on fast track

August 1, 2011

By PARUL CHANDRA

New Delhi

Chugging ahead with its plans to build high-speed rail corridors along certain important routes, the Indian railways now plans to carry out pre-feasibility studies for these chosen routes. As the railways Vision 2020 document says, this could make train journeys between Delhi and Mumbai or Delhi and Kolkata just overnight journeys.
Also as a part of the ambitious project, which will aim at reducing the travel for passengers by as much as three to four hours, the railways is busy readying a Cabinet note for setting up a national high-speed rail authority, according to sources.
The authority will be tasked with job of overseeing the planning and implementation of this project. The proposal to set up such an authority was mentioned in the last rail budget speech. The then rail minister, Mamata Banerjee, had also said that the proposed high-speed corridors, which would allow trains to run at speeds ranging from 250 to 300 kilometres per hour, would be a “transformational initiative”.
As for funding for this project, the railways will be looking for private investment through the PPP mode.
The six corridors identified by the railways are: Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar (450 km), Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad (650 km), Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijaywada-Chennai (664 km), Chennai-Bengaluru-Coimbatore-Ernakulam (649 km), Howrah-Haldia (135 km) and Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna (991 km).
With there being several gains in store for states that have these high-speed rail corridors running through their territory, they have agreed to bear half the cost that will be incurred for conducting the pre-feasibility studies.
Among the states that have agreed to share the consultancy cost are Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab, Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/high-speed-trains-fast-track-412

Mumbai to Delhi in just 7 hours?

Manthan K Mehta, TNN Jul 21, 2011, 08.30am IST

MUMBAI: If all goes as planned, your train travel time between the national and the commercial capitals of India could soon come down by at least half. According to railway officials, the infrastructure for the Golden Rail Corridor, which will have trains running at semihigh speed (160-200 kmph) between New Delhi and Mumbai , is likely to cost around Rs 5,000 crore. The cost, they say, is relatively low as the railways will not have to acquire land for the project.

Once the project takes off, the New Delhi-Mumbai travel time will be reduced to six to seven hours. At present, Rajdhani Express, the fastest train on the Indian railway , runs at 120-130 kmph and takes at least 16 hours to cover a distance of 1,400 km between the two cities.

Sharat Chandrayan, chief public relations officer, WR, said, "A delegation from the Japanese government that visited India last week is satisfied as far as the commercial viability of the project is concerned. Another team will soon visit the country to study the technical aspects of the project."

A high-speed train runs above 250 km/hour, for which separate infrastructure , including the tracks, is required. For this, land acquisition is necessary. "These semi-high speed trains will run on existing tracks, so land need not be acquired . No major changes need to be made in the existing track design. The loop design (at points and crossings ), however, will have to be modified to ensure that the train is able to change the track at a speed of 100 kmph or above. As of now, trains are not allowed to go beyond 30 kmph while changing tracks," he said.

Conventional engine and coaches will not be used for this corridor. Chandrayan said, "State-of-the-art rakes will be used on this corridor that will have Electric Multiple Unit (EMU)-type distributed power system that assists faster acceleration and deceleration."

Unlike conventional long distance trains, an EMU requires no separate locomotives as electric traction motors are installed in one of the carriages. The signalling system will also be different for the semi-high speed train.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-21/news/29798245_1_semihigh-speed-fastest-train-kmph

Mumbai to Delhi in 8 hours by 200-kmph Rajdhani

Binoo Nair, Mumbai Mirror Jul 16, 2011, 09.51am IST

The Rajdhani Express covers the 1,384-km distance between Mumbai and Delhi in 16 hours, at an average speed of 90 kmph. Imagine the journey time reduced by half, and the train scorching the tracks at 200 kmph.

This could be a reality, with some help from economists from Japan. A delegation of top Japanese economists conducted a survey of the Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani corridor recently, to check the feasibility of a project aimed at enhancing the speed of trains to about 200 kmph.

Railway sources said the project, called Golden Rail Corridor, intends to bring travel time between Mumbai and Delhi under nine hours.

"We believe semi-high speed rail corridors are a better option compared to the more ambitious highspeed and bullet train proposals which are outrageously costly, and will take far longer to build," the source said.

THE MEETING

Railway Ministry Chief Spokesperson Anil Saxena said the Japanese delegation had several rounds of talks with Railway Board officials in Delhi on Friday afternoon. Another team of railway experts from Japan is expected next month for another survey, an official said.

The Japanese team visited Baroda, Surat and Mumbai. A senior Railway official said, "They reached Baroda on Tuesday evening, where they inspected the locomotive shed and repairing facilities. The next day, railway establishments at Surat were studied, followed by track inspections from Surat to Mumbai."

The delegation collected data such as passenger statistics, population, technical capabilities of trains, tracks and the number of workshops.

"The team will submit a report to the Railway Ministry and to the Japanese government on why Japan should be granting loans to Indian Railways for the project," the official said.

Chief Administrative Officer, Western Railway (construction) Subodh Jain confirmed the developments but refused put a time frame on the project.

In her tenure as Railway Minister, Mamata Bannerjee had announced the pre-feasibility study for the Mumbai-Delhi corridor. She said that similar studies would be conducted for semi-high speed lines between Mumbai and Kolkata, and for the Chennai-Bangalore , Delhi-Jaipur , and Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridors.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-16/news/29781790_1_semi-high-speed-kmph-mumbai-and-delhi