Bharat Rakshak

We can not do this safely with present rakes. Things like braking , weight, energy consumption, suspension, coupling become serious issues at such sustained speeds. At a minimum we need LHB rakes.

Yes the idea is, to upgrade existing track slowly to 150-200 kmph speeds, then turn every thing to 8-12 hour trips in chair cars @ twice density. Even night trains will be by chair car. The sleeper system we have is grossly inefficient and, expensive and wasteful by world standards. Esp. for the rock bottom prices we pay. We will have to give it up at some point.

All a question of paisa.

Just for perspective Panda has spent about $400 Billion on its HSR network. This is roughly, Rs 2,000,000 Crore. Its passenger revenues at ~$10-15 Billion is comparable to IR. Gives you an Idea of the chances that money will be paid back.

^^which means the one last remaining refuge of comfortable travel will be gone too

Incheon Metro is already building a maglev based metro line. It is NOT the 500kmph TFTA maglev. It is a slower running metro system.

It seems they built a 6.1km line for 1800Cr INR, ie around INR 300Cr/km. Not bad at all. According to E. Sreedharan, this technology will cost less than their own wheel on steel solution.

Do maglevs consume more electricity than their electrified counterparts of wheel on steel?

What about double decker trains? More carriage per carriage and more passengers. Will need massive changes to the overhead electricity lines and all new rolling stock but definitely worth the cost if we can double the capacity in some select high passenger volume routes. We are a nation about to reach 2000$ per capita income and its only a matter of time before we expect more comfort and more "space" than what is currently available in the 3 tier carriages.

I must admit, I got influenced by "Under Siege 2".

edit: will we need a broader gauge as double decker on current gauges might not be able to high speed curve turns?

Amtrak has double decker sleepers with no impact on costs.

Rakes cost more, load to me hauled burns more fuel, facilities need to handle more passengers, steps eliminate some of the advantage, etc. Once you do the numbers double decker is marginal in efficiency. IR has tried double decker numerous times and run into big enough problem that it has essentially given it up.

with respect to mass transit, i'll take network coverage + service frequency to jingchak in stations and bogies any day.

High speed railways connecting major cities that lie in proximity such as Chennai-Bangalore-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-one of the nearby capitals, are the need of the hour. But the process is frought with complications and there are serious obstacles around

1. Not sure if Indian Railways has the know how, the ability, the efficiency or the will to implement such a project. Therefore, it must be a private initiative or a public-private venture.

2. High speed railways need their own dedicated corridor, which means the tracks must be fenced, effectively parititioning, villages, towns and communities. While the trains may run on elevated tracks in cities and townships, they'll have to run on surface in the countryside. Given that even our countryside is thickly populated and our national character of "fences are meant to be breached, tjumped over o simply pulled down", can see lot of accidents happening when villagers make their way to the other side instead of employing non-existent civic sense and using the underpasses.

3. Land acquistion- Land mafia in anticipation of such projects have picked up prime land all along the highways and existing railway lines. More Nandigrams and NOIDAs will not be surprising.

4. Our cities have no space for dedicated stations for these HSRs, thus, they'll have to be built on the periphery. Cue the land mafia and the lack of suitable public transport means transport mafia- taxis, autos and others make merry, while the passengers curse their luck.

5. Security issues- one of the USPs of HSRs worldwide is that the passengers can walk into the train without airport style cavity search and 3 hour check pre-flight check in. An impossibility in India considering that commuters for Delhi Metro have to wait in long queues, the security checks for HSRs will have to be more extensive considering the implications of an explosive going off in a train travelling at speeds in excess of 250kmph. This would neutralise one of the prime advantages of HSRs over air travel.

6. Lots of vested interests in airline and passenger bus services. Bangalore-Mysore rail line is still single track, so is the Bangalore-Secinderabad line, at least, significantly due to these vested interests, if not majorly so. Plenty other examples.

7. Paying customers. HSRs won't come cheap, how many folks will be willing to pay for the service. Considering the number of air travel passengers, perhaps this may not be that big a concern, but significant neverhteless.

Getting a sleeper ticket is always very very difficult on most routs. Would it not be an idea to convert 2/3 og sleeper coaches into chair cars. At the same time convert the rest of them into AC and charge AC prices. The increase in revenue could be used to finance better and faster services.

I dont think so. India at 5' 6" has the broadest gauge in the world

erm, yogi sahab, IR has already introduced a double decker passenger.

a look at the interiors.

double containers have been recently inaugurated in western DFC.

I think the greatest hurdle for HSR is the pocket of Indians. 1000 km journey, 150 km speed will take 7 hours. while a super fast state of the art train running at 250 km will still take 4 hours.
The ticket for 7 hours train time would be at the price level of say arround 1000 rupees. The HSR will cost at least 5000 rupees. Not many Indians are willing to pay 4000 rupees just to save 3 hours.

Rishi,

I don't think HSR (250 kmph+) prices will EVER become economic. Even Massaland people don't find it economic. Far Far cheaper & even less energy consumed to fly. So why is Panda building 1000 km HSR lines. Who knows. Official stupidity?

What we think (consensus) will work in India is a Mini-HSR. 150 kmph to about 200 kmph. At these speeds existing track can be gradually upgraded over about 20 years at peanuts compared to a full HSR. To do this on India's 20,000 km's of critical trunk lines may cost in the region of 10 crore per km. Most studies have actually put it in the 4-5 Crore range but lets be conservative and include some money for rolling stock as well. So total cost of 200,000 Crore. Or about $ 40 Billion. This is a tiny tiny fraction of the cost of full fledged HSR. Panda has spent $400 Billion to build 10,000 Km of HSR so far. Their full 20,000 Km network is going to cost about $ 1 Trillion. And note we would do it incrementally over 20 years so we only need $ 2 Billion per year. At 200 kmph Chennai-Bangalore is 90 minutes, Chennai-Mumbai is 6 hours, Chennai-Delhi is 10 Hours.This is very doable on our existing routes into the heart of cities. Esp. as minimal land acquisition is necessary.

The super critical precondition is that freight, esp. bulk freight (heavy.slow) be taken off regular lines. Hence the critical nature of getting the freight corridors going. Inaction causes me quite some frustration. IMO this is the single most important project in India and it languishes on the sidelines.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... llet-train



And the private sector will never be able to make this work. We have to do it as a social benefit to the nation.

Note that even Panda is now slowly lowering its speeds for cost reasons. I'm very certain their HSR will in a few years will turn into a 200 kmph semi-HSR. That is the quality they have built it too, as I have noted before. Construction techniques, quality and build tolerances are abysmal.

Thanks, dint know that. I was always under the opinion that double decker coaches in India would be impossible due to the fixed height of the electrical power lines overhead. This one seems to be a diesel locomotive.

It is Electric. See at .09 in the first video.

at least two non-AC DD pulled by electric locos have been in operation since donkeys years, the flying rani and the black diamond express. the kolkata dhanbad DD runs on the same route as the black diamond, it might be the new black diamond for all I know.
flying rani :

Not sure if Massaland is the best example to cite in this instance. That country has never taken to trains and never will. HSRs are pretty popular in Europe and Japan and the Tokaido Shin-kansen that covers the distance between Osaka and Tokyo in 2 and a half hours with less than 10 minute intervals between trains, has a pretty high occupancy even when tickets are priced at 14,000 Yen one way.

I can add Pushpak Express running between Lucknow and Mumbai which had Double Decker rake both AC and non AC seating/Sleepar classes way back in 1982-83. I had traveled by that train from manmad to Mumbai CST.

I have taken the HSR in China and can report that they run full. Payed about 300 rmb (approx rs 2000) for a 350 km journey. But I strongly doubt that they are returning the entire cost. But you cant always look at it from a cost perspective. Look at Delhi Metro. I do not think it is breaking even, but still it is worth it.

I Europe, people are happy to pay an extra Rs 5000 to cut journey time from 4hours to 2 hours.

Having said that, there is no point in having a HSR in Mumbai, if you are going to waste 2 hours in the traffic to reach to your destination. Better to invest in Mumbai infrastructure (metro, road etc).

Problem are freight trains, which run very slow. They should either run faster, or there should be made waiting bays so that passenger trains can bypass them. What about the possibility to use the opposite track to bypass the freight trains?? should be possible with modern control systems.

>> Look at Delhi Metro. I do not think it is breaking even,

last I heard it is, but only after land development is taken into account.

+1

Air travel is the optimal mode for long distances (1000 km +). Anything less than 1000 km can be done with medium speed rail (say 160 kmph average speed).

I'm sure that air travel can be made a lot cheaper and faster - what is needed is
(1) More runways
(2) Efficient terminal buildings with lots of capacity and rapid baggage handling
(3) Good metro rail connections between city centers, airports, bus and rail terminuses.
(4) Development of India-specific high capacity medium range jets (say 600 passengers and 3000 km range).

I think the government needs to take a coordinating role in creating such a air network, can't leave it to private operators.

It has to be a lot cheaper too. For example suppose you had a 600 seater jet making 4 round trips daily between Delhi and Bangalore, I'm sure it could break even at a pretty low price point, provided airport charges are not exorbitant.

Another issue is how to cover the last mile. I think a good approach is to have a city-wide bicycle rental system. You should have bike rental points in every neighbourhood, particularly at metro and Bus-Rapid-Transit stops, shopping centers, office complexes etc. Should be able to pick up a bike at any of these points and drop off at any other point. Create bike lanes everywhere. Could issue smart cards to make things smoother. Have a fairly low hourly rate (say 1 rupee per hour?)

^^^ Another point is that after the freight corridors are established along all major routes, Railways should work together with consolidators accepting shipments from the public and booking a container at a time. Ultimately one should be able to send a shipment from point A to point B in 24 hours. Should also have refrigerated containers for agricultural produce. The number of trucks on the highways will reduce drastically, cutting the fuel import bill, making driving easier for passenger cars etc.

A quick calculation shows that if you have the same airfares as railway class 3A, and are able to fill up the seats, you would have a revenue of about Rs 72 lakhs per day for this 1 plane.

Rishi,

The problem with freight is not the speeds in it self. Even though that too is a problem.

The real problem is what it does to the track & Infrastructure. A major reason for poor ride quality in IR is the damaging effect of freight wagons on the tracks. Heavy freight
- damages the rails causing dips and wheel spin divots.
- Causes shifting of track
- damages the joints
- damages bridges & embankments
- causes straightening of curves and banking.

There simply no way to run safely at 150 kmph+ with freight on the same track.

Agree almost entirely with this post.
Beyond 150 km/h law of diminishing returns take over and far too much energy must be expended to overcome drag for very little increase in speeds. Also, the longer braking distances for high speed trains mean that track utilization is reduced.
Just to be clear, the trick is to average 150km/h for 8-12 hours for each and every passenger train.
150 km/h average has to be the guaranteed quality of service and the cheapest and most practical way to achieve it is to run at that speed almost the entire journey.
The primary obstacles to running 150 km/h avg. long distance IMHO, are the scheduling issues and the primitive control systems.

I am just wondering. Would it not be possible to build track exchange every 4 km or something like that. Then the fast trains could bypass the slower moving freight trains. You simply just use the opposite track to bypass. Of course one would have to have a good train control system. It should be possible.

Allowing freight to use the same tracks will make it hard to maintain the high track quality required for passenger trains moving at say 180 kmph top speed.

Jaipur: DMRC gets Metro phase II; PPP mode for parking slots



Jaipur Metro parks its woes in pvt land



Jaipur Metro project running on the right track

Good progress update on the link above.

you can see the state govt admin buildings of the sarkari district of salt lake in the pic.

Meanwhile...

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp ... 679686.ece

The bidders probably didn't want to cough up the amounts demanded.

With Tamil Nadu Government fast on its way to bankruptcy, hope they will be able to pay up for all the super duper infra.

Painfully coming to terms with the country's first monorail going on the bataan death march

How it could've been a trendsetter and where it's gonna end up now due to nincompoops and numbnuts running riot with their flights of fancy on how things should be done, ignoring reality and sound engineering principles

The first monorail project is in Mumbai and it is very much on track.

nachiket, I know monorail and metro projects better than a lot of people on this forum

2 Tunnel Boring Machines to start work on Jan 15 for Chennai Metro

Courtesy: Business Line

Hmmmm, why chinese ? probably got them cheap i guess

cause chennai and china kinda starts with 'ch'? .

why this - after the kolkattans, chennaites love china di.

cant L&T make one? or any other in india