All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go: Semi-high Speed Train Ready But No Track to Support

New Delhi: In another instance of lack of foresight, the Indian Railways is going ahead with the trial of the semi-high speed train for running at a maximum speed of 160 km per hour, even though there are no existing tracks to support that speed in the entire rail network in the country.

Barring about a 90 km stretch between Palwal and Mathura on the Delhi-Bhopal route, the tracks have not been strengthened beyond the speed of 130 kmph.

Known as Train-18, Indian Railways' first trainset was rolled out from Integral Coach Factory in Chennai with much fanfare as it aims to reduce travel time between metro cities for its in-built faster acceleration and deceleration mechanism.

Currently, all mail or express trains take time to accelerate as well as for reducing their speed before each station. 

Since, a trainset is not hauled by a locomotive as it is engineless and runs on the distributive power system, the acceleration and deceleration rate is much faster than a loco-driven train.  Estimated to cost around Rs. 100 crore, the 16-coach fully AC train is the costliest train so far as it is being equipped with world class amenities.

Also Read: Can Cash-Strapped Indian Railways Afford 100% Electrification?

However, despite all high standards, the Train-18 will have to run at a maximum speed of 130 kmph like other trains and to reach the speed of 160 kmph, the costliest train will have to wait till the tracks are fenced off and strengthened.

According to the plan, the main trunk routes such as Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata sectors need to be strengthened with signal upgradation to facilitate trains to run at a speed of 160 kmph. These routes have to be fenced off with barbed wire to prevent trespassing of cattle and humans.

Costliest Train but Speed Still the Same

Experts say that without making the tracks compatible for running trains at higher speed, railways should not have spent Rs. 100 crore on a train.   

Now the new train, which has facilities such as comfortable seats, on-board Wi-Fi, a GPS-based passenger information system, touch-free bio-vacuum toilets, LED lighting, mobile charging points, and a climate control system that adjusts the temperature according to occupancy and weather, has to run at the maximum of 130 kmph only.

However, a senior railway official said though the train will not run at its maximum speed of 160 kmph due to track limitation, riding comforts for passengers will definitely increase due to the qualitative change in amenities.

Incidentally, the state-owned Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW) has recently produced a new electric loco, which is expected to travel at 200 kmph. However, the ground reality is that nowhere in the country are the rail tracks fit for 200 kmph. Barring the 90 km stretch between Palwal and Mathura which had been upgraded to 160 kmph for the Gatimaan Express, a train cannot go beyond the maximum speed of 130 kmph for the rest of the network. 

Similarly, though the Railways claim to have commissioned the vast stretch of routes as electrified track across the country, not many of these rail lines are yet capable of hauling electric locomotives and still depend on diesel locos. The traction sub-stations (TSS), essential for running electric locos, have not come up along the recently converted many electrified lines, as a result of which the trains are hauled by not electric locos but diesel ones on these commissioned routes.