Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s grandiose announcement to run trains faster and increase the coaches from 24 to 26 could take at least a year before it becomes a reality in the South Central Railway.
The Minister had said trains now running at up to 130 km per hour would be speeded up to 160 kmph and those at 160 kmph would be speeded up to 200 kmph. As far as the South Central Railway is concerned, there are only two trains - Secunderabad-Hazrath Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express to New Delhi and Shatabdi Express to Pune that can technically do up to 130 kmph. They currently run at top speed of only 110 kmph that works out to an average between 75 to 80 kmph.
Enquiries with senior Railway officials reveal that adding speed to express trains is not just a matter of pressing the accelerator or pulling a lever. Interestingly, there was more work to be done on the track and that the locomotives per se, had more than enough power to touch the speeds desired. For example, a diesel engine has a horsepower of up to 4,000, while an electric locomotive was of 5,000 horsepower.
The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) is the authority to authorise such sectional speeds and certify accordingly, based on several factors like tensile strength of the rail, strengthening of track ballast, changing rail lengths where found necessary.
Also to be taken into consideration were the number of curves along the route and the degree of curvature.
As for the coaches, its is not just adding two more coaches to the existing 24, on 10 express trains originating in the Zone, another official pointed out. The trains that currently originate in the zone and run with 24 coaches include the Andhra Pradesh, Charminar, Gauthami, Godavari, Pinakini and Ratnachal.
