Indian Railways

[Wayfarer]

The British era alignment and routes doesn’t allow broad gauge line for 300+ speed. We need to overhaul completely to get to that speed which IR will never take up.
What IR has to do is to upgrade present infrastructure to 180 - 200 kmph and build a greenfield dedicated fast corridor between major metropolitan cites ( Delhi - Kolkata - Chennai - Bengaluru - Mumbai ) which can be 250-280 kmph speed keeping the ticket costs affordable. Bullet train tickets will be out of purchasing power of 80% of Indians and will be a white elephant for next 20-30 years.

Hmm... is that based on some feasibility study or just speculation?

 

[crazywithmath]

Bullet train tickets will be out of purchasing power of 80% of Indians and will be a white elephant for next 20-30 years.

No, it won't be. Tickets will be subsudized and come significantly cheaper than flight tickets. Also, HSR stations, unlike the airports, will be built in the city proper which will ensure better last mile connectivity.

 

[Gandaberunda]

No, it won't be. Tickets will be subsudized and come significantly cheaper than flight tickets. Also, HSR stations, unlike the airports, will be built in the city proper which will ensure better last mile connectivity.

Tickets will be subsidised so that will turn white elephant in long run. Bullet trains aren’t successful even in China. No matter the connectivity you can’t make a bullet train be the first choice to take that to in Indian perspective. Once operational The Ahmedabad- Mumbai bullet train will give the clear perspective. Operational costs will be huge and ridership will be questionable

 

[Wayfarer]

Bullet train mustn't be seen purely from a profitability standpoint either. It'll go a long way in reducing our energy import bill and congestion from our roads.

 

[ArjunMK1A]

Hmm... is that based on some feasibility study or just speculation?

Prices will be higher than VB trains. But nowhere on par with Flights. Will be in-between.

 

[Gandaberunda]

Bullet train mustn't be seen purely from a profitability standpoint either. It'll go a long way in reducing our energy import bill and congestion from our roads.

It’s foolishness to expect bullet train will reduce congestion on our roads. Few VB/ flight users may shift to bullet train that’s it.

 

[crazywithmath]

Tickets will be subsidised so that will turn white elephant in long run. Bullet trains aren’t successful even in China.

Public transport systems are not supposed to run profits, that is not their primary aim. HSRs, especially, ensure faster mobility among the masses at a cheaper cost - the secondary and tertiary economic benefits are massive.

Operational costs will be huge and ridership will be questionable

Our metro systems have high construction and operational costs. Have we stopped building them?

 

[sauntheninja]

View: https://x.com/IndianTechGuide/status/1906179618484195362

Forgive my ignorance but are these trains with these coaches in service now in India? I kept reading about the inaugural train that was going to run from Delhi to Kashmir but seems like the booking window kept on getting postponed?

 

[Wayfarer]

It’s foolishness to expect bullet train will reduce congestion on our roads. Few VB/ flight users may shift to bullet train that’s it.

Not every service on hsr tracks need to be high speed. They'll be running regular speed and night trains as well on it. Moreover, it's building for the future. Something India should have done from the very beginning. Don't wait to build till the demand catches up, induce demand!

 

[Gandaberunda]

Public transport systems are not supposed to run profits, that is not their primary aim. HSRs, especially, ensure faster mobility among the masses at a cheaper cost - the secondary and tertiary economic benefits are massive.



Our metro systems have high construction and operational costs. Have we stopped building them?

Metro has become a vote bank for central govt which is building metro in every two tier third grade cities of north India which doesn’t have a proper bus services.
The same IR minister Ashwini Vaishnav cries in media on operational costs railway only recovers 57% of the ticket.

 

[crazywithmath]

Metro has become a vote bank for central govt which is building metro in every two tier third grade cities of north India which doesn’t have a proper bus services.

Great. Finally, a brand of vote bank politics that should be encouraged. Should build more tbh, building one line at a tier 2/3 city won't achieve the scale and they will continue crying over poor ridership.

The same IR minister Ashwini Vaishnav cries in media on operational costs railway only recovers 57% of the ticket.

Irrelevant. IR finances have been screwed by the Lalus and the Mamatas, bringing it back on track is not an easy job.

It’s foolishness to expect bullet train will reduce congestion on our roads. Few VB/ flight users may shift to bullet train that’s it.

His other point still stands. A large HSR network can keep crude imports in check.

 

[Gandaberunda]

Irrelevant. IR finances have been screwed by the Lalus and the Mamatas, bringing it back on track is not an easy job.

So operational costs is irrelevant now?

His other point still stands. A large HSR network can keep crude imports in check

Large HSR network? How much is exactly the large? 500 kms single corridor running services in single digit isn’t large and yes HSR won’t decongest Indian roads similar way metro did not decongest any Indian road till now.

 

[Gandaberunda]

Hmm... is that based on some feasibility study or just speculation?

IR did conduct feasibility study and even tried to bring European technology to IR by introducing Talgo high speed rakes but that was failure and crashed at 160 kmph speed test itself. The gradients steep curves doesn’t even allow 130 kmph speed on our present infrastructure.

 

[ArjunMK1A]

IR did conduct feasibility study and even tried to bring European technology to IR by introducing Talgo high speed rakes but that was failure and crashed at 160 kmph speed test itself. The gradients steep curves doesn’t even allow 130 kmph speed on our present infrastructure.

No, Talgo uses Jacobs bogies, and IR needs an simple bogie design similar to ICF, LHB. Thus talgo was not selected, otherwise Talgo coaches have articulation and can be able to run at curves easily compared to current LHB, ICF.

 

[crazywithmath]

So operational costs is irrelevant now?

In the grand scheme of things, yes. They can afford it.

Large HSR network? How much is exactly the large? 500 kms single corridor running services in single digit isn’t large and yes HSR won’t decongest Indian roads similar way metro did not decongest any Indian road till now.

I am advocating for a large network, what they are building now is tiny. They should up their game instead of playing DPR-DPR.

 

[Kattar]

Tickets will be subsidised so that will turn white elephant in long run. Bullet trains aren’t successful even in China. No matter the connectivity you can’t make a bullet train be the first choice to take that to in Indian perspective. Once operational The Ahmedabad- Mumbai bullet train will give the clear perspective. Operational costs will be huge and ridership will be questionable

We are a large country with huge population in clusters spread all across within reasonable distance. Ideal for HSRs. We should develop capacity and skill set to build for internal use and also for other countries (in collaboration with Japanese)

At-least 3-5 routes should be built for our Engineers and planners to gain first hand experience in its construction, design and production of coaches, technical and non-technical operation aspects etc before we start looking at profitability for further expansion

While flights between Hyderabad and Mumbai at high frequency is good for both their local-economies, a HSR line between the two will unlock the potential of 8-10 Tier-2 cities on the line where some of the HSRs may have a stop. 10-15 years from now, managerial and above personnel will not mind staying 100-150 kms away from their work place if they can commute via HSR daily. Lower level resources will be more open to taking jobs in 500-800 kms radius as even they can use HSR to spend weekends with their families.

Nothing can match the value creation that good highways bring, but we are already getting there. I used to get my tyres aligned at around 5K mark till few years ago. It is so much better now, almost 20K KMs since I got pre-cautionary check done, and when I recently went to alignment shop habitually, the technician did a visual check of tyre wear and sent me off saying alignment is still in great condition! Tyres that used to typically last 40-50K KMs before comfortably cross 70K-80K now. Read that folks were driving to Kumbh from as far as TN, Andra, Bangalore etc in humongous numbers! Unimaginable just a decade ago.

With good highways and ports almost in place, material movement will get far more efficient. So it is excellent that current Government had the foresight to initate a pilot project for HSR well in time before it becomes a necessity and we need to build in large scale for increasing mobility of our workforce

 

[Kattar]

Metro has become a vote bank for central govt which is building metro in every two tier third grade cities of north India which doesn’t have a proper bus services.
The same IR minister Ashwini Vaishnav cries in media on operational costs railway only recovers 57% of the ticket.

Metro utilization in India is barely 17% of projected figures with almost 7% added to national figure by Delhi alone where it has about 45% occupancy when both peak and non-peak traffic is accounted for and with all other cities having worser numbers. But this is not the fault of the metro system itself but many other factors which are unique to India

# Ticket costs are 60-70% higher than they should be, largely because of obscenely high land acquisition costs which is nearly 5x due to stupid laws, and systematic corruption which adds another 30% to overall project costs.

# Over intelligent Babus reduce frequency to 10-15 mins in non-peak hours which can easily reach 30 mins waiting if one has to switch lines taking away the main benefit

# After one steps out of a station, options are quite dire, such as navigating broken or non-existent footpaths competing with stray dogs, hawkers and Ninja bike riders, or pay 2-3x hafta for a rick ride or be at mercy of city buses which seem to run on schedules provided by a random number generator

When communte to and beyond metro is also accounted for in time and cost, other options start to look to better

Muncipalities all across India are criminal enterprises that exist solely for the benefit sarkari gandus, contracter goondas and political henchmen. Only a complete overhaul has a remote chance of making them functional for citizen benefits. Till that is fixed, any metro they have will be part of collateral damage in the dysfunctional Indian urban governance

 

[Gandaberunda]

No, Talgo uses Jacobs bogies, and IR needs a simple bogie design similar to ICF, LHB. Thus talgo was not selected, otherwise Talgo coaches have articulation and can be able to run at curves easily compared to current LHB, ICF.

Talgo crashed and flopped in trails on the same tracks were LHB coaches run 110-130 kmph. So the point is not suitable to run any kind of rakes above 160 kmph due to steep curves until the tracks and alignments are upgraded.

 

[Blademaster]

Why upgraded to 130 kmph ? Why not 300+ ?

France is running bullet trains on older tracks .

You would need to upgrade the tracks and curves and eliminate railroad crossings to allow running at higher speeds and avoid accidents.

 

[Comet]

View: https://x.com/NewsIADN/status/1906700944613793850