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Homemade bullet trains may belt down specialised railway corridors in the not-too-distant-future. According to two people aware of developments, the Centre is mulling an upgradation of its existing semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains to high-speed status for the next round of its bullet train project.
Homemade bullet trains may belt down specialised railway corridors in the not-too-distant-future. According to two people aware of developments, the Centre is mulling an upgradation of its existing semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains to high-speed status for the next round of its bullet train project.
These trains could be used in future corridors of the bullet train project or even used on the existing Railway network, the first person quoted above said on condition of anonymity.
These trains could be used in future corridors of the bullet train project or even used on the existing Railway network, the first person quoted above said on condition of anonymity.
“Following the success of Vande Bharat, under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, Indian Railways has now taken up designing and manufacturing of high-speed train sets," the second person cited above said, adding that Integrated Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, and BEML are collaborating to design and manufacture these train sets, which will have a design speed of 280 kmph. Currently, Vande Bharat trains have a maximum speed of 180 kmph.
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“The manufacturing cost of this is around ₹28 crore per car (excluding taxes), which is highly competitive compared with other high-speed train sets and almost half the price of Japanese rolling stock that may be used for the MAHSR project," the second person said, also wishing to remain anonymous.
MAHSR refers to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail, India’s first bullet train corridor being developed by the National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL). A joint venture between the government of India and the state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra, NHSRCL has also identified seven other HSR corridors.
DPRs (detailed project reports) for four of these seven HSR corridors—Delhi-Varanasi, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Nagpur-Mumbai, and Mumbai-Hyderabad—were submitted to the Railway Board in 2023-24. One DPR (for Delhi-Amritsar HSR corridor) has been submitted in July 2024.
The remaining two DPRs—for Chennai-Mysore and Varanasi-Howrah HSR corridors—are expected to be submitted in the remaining part of fiscal 2024-25.
The second person quoted above said that approval for these corridors may be taken based on indigenous bullet trains that may come up from concept stage to development stage in the next few years.
Queries sent to the railways ministry remained unanswered till press time.
A matter of cost
In an emailed reply to a Mint query, NHSRCL said it is discussing rolling stock required for the MAHSR project with Japanese companies, and tenders are likely to be finalised soon. It added that currently there was no plan by the organisation to use indigenous rolling stock or global tender for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.
It was expected that NHSRCL may negotiate pricing for Japanese bullet trains before issuing tender for rolling stock to ensure that cost of these trains is not prohibitively high. The first person aware of the development said that the price of each train set of Japanese E5 series Shinkansen bullet trains (eight cars) is around ₹400 crore.
Also read | India’s indigenous bullet train plan on track
“Every country which wants to have a world class rail transport system should get into manufacturing high-speed trains," said M.K. Gupta, former member engineering, Railway Board. “Indian Railways has shown before its prowess to make best-in-class locos, coaches, wagons and even semi high-speed Vande Bharat trains at much lower cost than globally available technologies."
Gupta added that in the case of bullet trains, too, domestic manufacturing either on its own or in partnership with a technology provider will help the Railways develop a system that is best suited for India and comes at an economical price that would allow these high-tech products to expand the domestic railway network and also be exported.
The bullet’s trajectory
While separately developing high-speed trains in the country using technology available globally, Indian Railways plans to scale up its own domestic high-speed train manufacturing by gradually increasing and testing higher speed versions of its Vande Bharat trains.
These trains currently have been tested for speeds up to 180 kmph under stage 2 of the program. The Vande Bharat versions 3 and 4 would run at speeds of about 220 kmph and 260 kmph, respectively, and finally move further up to 280-300 kmph.
Also read | Is India ready for bullet trains?
The graph for Vande Bharat train speeds would be similar to Japan’s own bullet train project, which started in 1959 with a maximum speed of 163kmph. This went up to 210kmph in 1964 and further to 270kmph in 1992. In 1997, Shinkansen speeds rose to 300kmph before reaching the current speed of 320kmph in 2013.
Status of the first corridor
Meanwhile, the country’s first bullet train corridor, the MAHSR, is moving at a swift pace. The total length of the project is 508 km (Gujarat: 352 km, Maharashtra: 156 km). There are 12 stations planned: (Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand/Nadiad, Ahmedabad, Sabarmati).
Considering the highest level of safety and associated maintenance protocols, the project has been designed with the support of Japan’s railways and customized for Indian requirements and climatic conditions.
Also read | Bullet train plans for 2 more stretches may get nod soon
The entire land (1389.5 Ha) for the project has been acquired. All civil tenders and depot tenders for Project and Track tender for the Gujarat portion have been awarded. Viaduct construction is in full swing.
Till now, 352 km of pier foundation, 340 km of pier construction, 260 km of girder casting, and 225 km of girder launching have been completed. The work of the undersea tunnel (approximately 21 km) has also started.
The MAHSR project is expected to begin operations in Gujarat by the end of 2027, and then extend to Maharashtra. The entire section leading up to Mumbai is expected to open by the end of 2028.
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