19.7.11

Semi high speed rail corridor ?



Japan is studying the feasibility of running high speed trains along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) on the existing tracks to save on costs. The study will look at whether regular trains can hit a maximum speed of 200 kilometres per hour on the existing railway network. The fastest trains today are Shatabdi and Rajdhani whose top speed is 130 km per hour. The study aims at pitching use of the existing network against the bullet train network and focusing on the economics of running them. Officials said setting up a bullet train network was turning out to be a costly affair. A bullet train would cost about Rs 50-65 crore per km, while upgrading the existing network would be at just Rs 5 crore per km. Laying the present type of track costs around Rs 1.5 crore per km. Officials said that the study was dual-purposed. First it would provide faster service to passengers and secondly the same technology could be used for the Dedicated Freight Corridor between the two cities. Senior Divisional commercial manager, Vadodara Udayshanker Jha said that said the main aims of the study was better utilization of the existing network and cutting down travel time. If the project went through, travel time between Mumbai-Delhi would be overnight. Presently, the Rajdhani connecting the two cities takes about 17 hours while other trains taken over 22 hours. He said the intention is that a person starting from Mumbai at 10 pm should reach Delhi early in the morning the next day. He said that the a delegation from the Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry, Japan was in Vadodara to explore the feasibility of semi high-speed rail development. The delegation decided to take up the study on the Surat-Godhra stretch. Officials said that the study was sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry, Japan and will be taken up by Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. Officials said that as per the railways this would be a semi-high speed study as the top speed was less than 250 km per hour. Trains with top speeds of 250 kmph are termed high speed trains while those of 200 to 250 kmph are semi-high speed trains. Officials said that once the study was completed it would be taken up along the Mumbai-Delhi route only. He said that three routes have been shortlisted. These routes include Delhi-Jaipur-Ajmer-Palanpur-Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat-Mumbai, while the other route was Delhi, Mathura-Kota-Ratlam-Godhra-Vadodara-Surat-Mumbai. The third shortlisted route is Delhi-Jaipur-Kota-Udaipur-Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat-Delhi.

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