Does India really require a bullet train?

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Originally Answered: Does India actually need a bullet train?

#AlokKumarVerma*

I am a retired railway engineer. In 1993-97, I was involved in research and development for raising speed of trains on Indian Railway. With this background I will try to provide some engineering insight into this question: Does India actually need a bullet train?

In the ongoing debate in the media on whether India should build a High Speed Rail (HSR) line to run Bullet Trains the following basic and very important point in the context of India has been completely missed:

“The Bullet Train technology was essentially developed in Japan and Western Europe which have hilly terrain or rolling topography on most of their railway networks. This technology is too costly for routes with predominantly flat terrain.”

On Indian Railways (IR) the terrain on most of the trunk routes, including the Mumbai – Ahmedabad route, is flat. So, Bullet Train lines have very limited scope because very few routes have hilly terrain or rolling topography.

The relevant facts are given below:

1. For building lines in hilly terrain or rolling topography, the per kilometre cost of a Bullet Train line is in the range of ₹200 to 350 crore. This compares favourably with the cost of a conventional high speed line in such terrain which costs ₹160 to 240 crore.

2. While a Bullet Train line carries trains at 300 to 350 km/hr a conventional high speed line carries trains at 180 to 200 km/hr with normal trains and 240 to 260 km/hr with tilting trains.

3. So the cost of a Bullet Train line is about twice the cost of a conventional high speed line but the advantage is that it offers higher speed and higher capacity also.

4. But, for routes in flat terrain, the per kilometer cost of a Bullet Train line is in the range of ₹160 to 240 crore which is about eight times the ₹ 20 to 30 crore cost of a conventional high speed line.

The 508 km Bullet Trains line between Mumbai – Ahmedabad is slated to cost ₹1,10,000 crores that gives the average cost as ₹217 crore/km. In contrast, a conventional high speed line will cost only about ₹16,000 crore which is about one-eighth of the cost of the Bullet train line with average cost as 25 to 30 crore/km.

While the Bullet Trains will cover the distance in 2 hr and 8 min, the journey will be completed on a conventional high speed line in 2 hr and 50 min with tilting trains (Average speed: 180 km/hr) and 3 hr 25 min with normal trains (Average speed: 150 km/hr).

Clearly the difference in travel time is not very significant despite the tremendous cost difference.

Another advantage of the conventional high speed technology is that the existing lines can be upgraded to carry trains at 180 to 200 km/hr with conventional trains and 240 to 260 km/hr with tilting trains.

India has been blessed with a very favourable topography on its trunk routes of transportation. More than 90% of these routes are in flat terrain of the vast Indo – Gangetic plains, the Deccan Plateau, the Coastal plain, and the Rajasthan desert.

Just about 10% is in mountainous terrain or undulating topography, such as parts of the Konkan line from Mumbai to Mangalore and the Mumbai-Pune line.

Bullet Train lines are astronomically costly, which a developing country like India can ill afford for upgrading its vast railway network with a core of 22,000 km of trunk routes.

Because of the predominantly flat terrain on its trunk routes, conventional high speed lines though a little slower than HSR lines are the most appropriate and a much cheaper answer to India’s needs.

By adopting the conventional high speed rail option, people in all parts of the country and of all income groups can be provided benefit of fast travel.

Recently I write a detailed article (Why bullet trains are unsuitable for India) explaining why Bullet Train technology is fundamentally unsuitable for India and has very limited scope.

So while the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train line may be justified on the ground that Japan is giving a loan on very favourable terms to India and it will boost Indo-Japanese ties, this technology is by and large unsuitable for India.

UPDATED ON 26.11.2020:

Since I wrote the above answer, I have prepared a plan for upgrading the Indian Railway network by building about 15,000 km of Classic High Speed (200-250 kmph) lines along the trunk routes, including the Golden Quadrilateral, at a fraction of per km cost compared to the cost of building Bullet Train lines. About 50% of these 15,000 km Classic High Speed lines will be upgraded existing lines and rest as new lines.

This will meet the requirements of travel over short, and medium distances (200-1,000 km) by daytime travel and over long distance (1,000-3,000 km) by overnight travel.

I made a detailed post on this on Twitter. You can read it using the link below.

#Writer is Former Railway Engineer at Indian Railways (1983–2016).

Courtesy: quora.com

#BulletTrain #IndianRailways