WHY DESPITE INHERENT ADVANTAGES INDIAN RAILWAY IS IN BAD SHAPE
Alok Kumar Verma, IRSE (Rtd.)
Speed of trains determines how well a railway system can compete with the other modes of transportation.
For the past hundred years since the advent of motorised road vehicles and airplanes, railways have been raising speed of trains.
Compared to the maximum speed of 80 to 100 kmph of the trains in the early 20th century (1900-1920), even in the advanced railways of Europe and North America, today many countries have trains running at 200-350 kmph.
Today, in terms of the maximum operational speed of trains on their trunk routes, the railway systems can be classified into the following 3 categories:
- Slow speed railways: 100-140 kmph – Most of the railways in South America, Central America, Middle East, and the Indian Subcontinent, including Myanmar fall in this group.
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Medium speed railways: More than 140 kmph but less than 200 kmph – Russia, Turkey, Australia, USA, Canada, Uzbekistan, and several countries in Eastern Europe and southeast Asia fall in this category.
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High speed railways: 200 kmph and above – Railways of Western Europe, Japan and China belong to this category.
An important fact to keep in mind is that there are many countries that are economically and technologically quite advanced but because of small population and very large area these countries have not developed their railway systems significantly as they rely on the road and air modes of transportation.
Large countries with low population density like Brazil (25/sq km), Argentina (16/sq km), Australia (3/sq km) and Canada (4/sq km) have not seen much development of the railways, except for few freight lines.
Then there are also countries like Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, which have predominantly hilly terrain which have also not developed their railway systems because of high cost of construction of Railway lines in mountains.
The India is the ideal country for rail transportation because of the following three factors:
- Large population: India has the second highest population, just behind China. It is expected to overtake China by 2024.
- Large area: India in world’s seventh largest country, with large cities at distances up to 2000-3000 km.
- Flat terrain: Besides the Himalayan region and hilly regions of the North East which are very thinly populated, the hilly terrain in India is in small areas mostly in narrow strips in the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats.
India’s population density (424/square km) is truly remarkable. It is about three times of China (149/square km) and twelve times of USA (36/square km).
Comparison of India and China in given below:
Area:
• China: 9.6 million sq km
• India: 3.29 million sq km
Estimated Population in 2020:
• China: 1.44 billion
• India: 1.37 billion
Population density:
China 149 people per sq km
India: 424 people per sq km
By 2024, India’s population is expected to exceed China’s.
Despite so many advantages for rail transportation, India’s railway network has languished, particularly in the past 25 years.
The situation today is that even on the six routes forming the Golden Quadrilateral along with its diagonals, about 50% aggregate route length has speed less than 130 kmph.
It is only recently that Railway Board has spoken of targets to raise speed to 130 kmph and 160 kmph on some routes.
But, it does not seem likely that speed will be raised to160 kmph in the next 10 years even on the most important routes like Delhi- Kolkata, Delhi – Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai and Kolkata – Mumbai, and the shorter important routes like Chennai – Bangalore, Bangalore – Hyderabad, Chennai – Thiruvananthapuram, Delhi-Amritsar/Jammu, Patna-Guwahati etc.
The main reason for this, about which I have written earlier, is the undue emphasis on building heavy haul Dedicated Freight Corridors (for longer trains of wagons of higher axle load and larger body dimensions) and 300-350 kmph ultra-highspeed Bullet Train lines, both of which are rather unsuitable for India.
Such large and heavy trains will have serious problems of inter-operability with the rest of Indian Railways network.
In fact, no other country in the world has built Heavy haul DFC lines on its trunk routes, and even the busiest freight lines carry passenger trains at commensurate speed.
Particularly, imprudent is the decision to build the Bullet Train lines on Standard Gauge (The Indian Railway network is on Broad Gauge) which will further hinder growth of Indian Railway in multiple ways.
While taking decision to build the ultra- highspeed Bullet Train lines, Railway Board seems to have completely overlooked the vital fact that India has flat terrain on its trunk routes which makes the 200-250 kmph Classic Highspeed Lines a much better option than the ultra-highspeed variety.
To appreciate where India’s railway system stands today among the world railways, comparison with China is in order.
Till 1990s, Indian Railway was ahead of the Chinese Railway in terms of both speed of trains and technological advancement.
But, today China has about 35,000 km of highspeed routes carrying trains at 200 to 350 kmph. One can travel long distance up to 3,000 km, from Harbin to Hong Kong, from Beijing-Shanghai to the far of places like Urumqi, Kunming and Chengdu in just 12 to 15 hours.
Another remarkable feature of the Chinese Railway is that today their freight trains are running at 100-160 kmph along with passenger trains at 200-250 kmph on the old trunk routes because China upgraded all its old trunk routes before building Dedicated Passenger Lines (DPLs) for 200-350 kmph speed on four north-south and four east-west corridors.
Today, one can travel from Beijing to Shanghai overnight in 12 hrs on the old line (1454 km), and, by paying higher fares, in 4 to 6 hrs on the new DPL (1318 km). Such options are available their on several other routes also.
It is indeed remarkable that the old Beijing – Shanghai line, which is one of the busiest lines in the world with huge freight traffic, also carries highspeed passenger trains at average speed of 120 kmph, which is much higher than the average speed of 75 to 85 kmph on the fastest Rajdhani routes on Indian Railways.
Rail transportation in India needs a renaissance. But that will not be possible unless India first upgrades its existing trunk routes.
India must put on hold plans to build DFCs and the super-costly 300-350 kmph ultra – highspeed Bullet Train lines.
In a recent decision Railway Board has ordered preparation of DPRs for building seven more ultra-highspeed Bullet Train lines on Standard Gauge.
Plans have also been announced for three more heavy-haul DFCs.
If Railway Board’s recent public posturing is any indication, soon there will be routes like Mumbai – Ahmedabad and Delhi-Varanasi.
Which will have three lines:
- A ultra-highspeed Bullet Train line,
- A heavy-haul DFC, and
- The existing line, which has been the backbone of railways in these parts of the country which will continue to languish with slow speed of trains.
From this, the inherent flaws of the Railway Board’s policy framework should be obvious to the country’s planners.
I will be looking at this in Part-II continue..
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