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India’s first bullet train could be a Calcutta-Delhi service, covering 1,500km in six hours to make Rajdhani and Duronto look like the laggard locomotives of old.
“The project is being discussed and we are looking for finance. We are looking at a public-private partnership on a build, operate and transfer basis,” railway minister Dinesh Trivedi told Metro. “I have spoken to the Japanese ambassador (for funding and know-how) and he has shown interest in the project.”
As of now, feasibility seems to be the only thing standing between the city and its proposed bullet-train link to the capital. Apart from superfast engines with pointy noses resembling planes, a bullet-train network requires dedicated tracks — stretches of them elevated — without any level crossings.
At that speed — an average of 250kmph and a maximum of 300-plus kmph — there isn’t any margin for error either. To put things in perspective, the average lap speed on the fastest F1 track this season, Monza in Italy, is 255kmph.
Cost is, of course, the deciding factor.
Railway officials said they estimated the budget for the proposed project to be around Rs 200 crore per kilometre, which works out to Rs 3,00,000 crore for just the Calcutta-Delhi route. That’s more than three times the railways’ working expenditure for the current fiscal.
So what makes Team Trivedi believe a bullet train will soon connect Calcutta to Delhi in six hours?
“We are looking at the big picture. It’s not just about connecting two cities, but also creating a subsidiary high-speed network around the two. Mumbai and Chennai will have similar high-speed corridors,” the rail minister said.
A senior ministry official said the proposal to explore the possibility of introducing bullet trains was as much a reflection of the change in mindset as a shift towards technologies already in use in the developed world.
“Earlier, the first response to a proposal like this would be, ‘Oh! Are you kidding me?’ and that would be the end of it. Not any longer.”
Trivedi said the fares for the bullet train service would be lower than that of air travel. The average one-way airfare on the Calcutta-Delhi route is currently Rs 4,500, inclusive of all taxes.
As and when the first bullet train hits the tracks, satellite townships like Haldia, Durgapur, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad will be connected to Calcutta by other high-speed trains to enable travellers to avail themselves of the new service.
The Rajdhani and Duronto are presently the fastest trains in the country, covering the Calcutta-Delhi route in around 17 hours.
Shatabdi trains are also popular because of their speed and convenience.
Minister Trivedi said studies would soon be commissioned on the type of tracks required, availability of land and other technical issues. A High Speed Corridor Authority is being set up for the project. “The details will be known by the end of the year,” a Railway Board official said.
With dedicated freight corridors already coming up, goods trains will soon be shifted from passenger train tracks. Locomotives and tracks will be upgraded to increase the speed of express trains, most of which now run at a maximum speed of between 120 to 150kmph.
“The target is to increase peak speed to 200kmph on the high speed network. A feasibility study in Mumbai has already started,” an official said.
Japan has the world’s largest bullet-train network, called the Shinkansen. All Shinkansen lines except two run on tracks that are exclusively built for it
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