Forget about scrambling to get good deals on flights to Delhi. In the next three years, you can take a high-speed train from Mumbai to the national Capital and reach in just about five hours. The Union Railway Ministry plans to run the trains on a dedicated corridor with speeds ranging from 160 kmph to 200 kmph, and a one-way travel time of 10 hours.
The existing Rajdhani, Shatabdi and other trains with Linked Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches are the only ones that will be allowed to run on this corridor. Upgradation of the tracks will begin soon, so that the assigned speed can be compatible with the tracks. To complete the work quickly, the ministry planning to assign it to a single agency. According to a Railway Board official, the ministry has sanctioned Rs. 11,189 crore for the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.
The upgradation involves replacing locomotive-hauled trains with main line electric multiple units and diesel electric multiple unit trains, track strengthening, modern signalling, a train protection warning system, and fencing at important stretches. “We will compete with airlines with the launch of these high-speed trains on dedicated freight corridors,” said Mohd Irfan Ahmed, Member PAC, Railway Board.
The Mumbai-Delhi route is used by nearly 90 passenger trains and a similar number of freight trains every day. The new system will benefit not just passengers but freight trains too. “We are planning to shift freight trains on other tracks. Passenger trains will run exclusively on the dedicated corridors,” said the railway ministry official.
The speed of Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains can go up to 130 kmph but this is not the consistent speed due to signal problem or halt at number of stations. As of now, only the Gateman Express runs at 160 kmph, between Delhi and Agra. It covers 188 km in just 40 minutes. In comparison, the Mumbai-Delhi stretch is nearly 1,500 km, and a journey on this route takes nearly 15-and-a-half hours. The Railway Ministry has also planned other corridors on the same speed by 2019: Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Kanpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur, Mysore-Bangluru-Chennai, Mumbai-Goa, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Hyderabad and Nagpur-Secunderabad.
The coaches will come with special safety features. The Integral Coach factory (ICF) in Punjab will have to discontinue manufacturing old-style coaches, and all coaches will now be converted to LHB coaches. “Manufacture of ICF coaches stopped from April 1 and retrofit all old 40,000 plus coaches with new safety features, better interiors,” tweeted Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.