Indian Railways Thread

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 27 Feb 2015 23:38

the praablam is it blows away al-e-baniyas and lalloo maharaj walas. they can't pee and spit on such chi chi stations. they don't want to move to a ionized clean state of living.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 27 Feb 2015 23:55

The existing Delhi Metro system is quite well maintained and organized, compared to what all the naysayers dismissed it about, when it started out. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that when the public is offered efficient public goods and services backed by effective delivery of the rule of law to maintain order, they treat it with respect. That is why people behave well abroad and change at home. When you give them crap, you should expect to get correspondingly low respect. Likewise, give them good facilities and ensure misbehavior is not tolerated, and they will treat it with respect. There may be exceptional instances of poor behavior which will in any case be prosecuted, but it's not hard to create good facilities and then educate people to report bad behavior.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Feb 2015 23:57

Suraj wrote:The existing Delhi Metro system is quite well maintained and organized, compared to what all the naysayers dismissed it about, when it started out. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that when the public is offered efficient public goods and services backed by effective delivery of the rule of law to maintain order, they treat it with respect. That is why people behave well abroad and change at home. When you give them crap, you should expect to get correspondingly low respect. Likewise, give them good facilities and ensure misbehavior is not tolerated, and they will treat it with respect. There may be exceptional instances of poor behavior which will in any case be prosecuted, but it's not hard to create good facilities and then educate people to report bad behavior.

+100. This is why Indian Railways must build Chi-Chi stations and coaches. The poor deserve best services as they pay for these services when using Indian Railway.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 27 Feb 2015 23:58

there was this TED presentation about how they made people respect public places to avoid dumping trash, pee and spit. Just colors!

paint them with temple red + white stripes all along the walls. aam admis at least respect that visual spectrum.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 28 Feb 2015 00:24

That is a cheap jugaad approach. It essentially amounts to building crap and giving it some lipstick to keep people from tarnishing it. It only works in a very limited context. A proper solution is put taxes to work into building something effective, run it effectively, and visibly handle misbehavior in a just way. When that's done, one does not need to appeal to piety by drawing religious motifs upon public facilities to keep them from being defaced.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 Feb 2015 02:35

of course it was contextual.. well whatever that works to keep aam brains away from the walls and corners. i guess proper facilities, trash cans, spit pots, drains, etc. should help and at the same time these are very closed to restrooms and bathrooms only. plain old wash basin/sink should be good provided water flows form those faucets.

next humane thing is ensure people don't get sick using city/corporation water supplies. guaranteed water on tap is very important step for basic improvements. this is not a requirement, but a basic necessity.

Kashi · Post by **Kashi** » 28 Feb 2015 06:03

Suraj wrote: E.g. in Mumbai, the CST, Churchgate, Dadar, etc can all become hubs that challenge the world's biggest like Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Shibuya. All those are glitzy yes, but that's just the retail area built out with private money. The railway part looks its age, but is just clean and efficiently maintained. There are probably Delhi Metro stations whose trackside area looks a little more modern.

It works for these places because they are situated in areas which are commercial nerve centres. Not all terminii can be developed like that. For instance Shin-Osaka or Shin-Kobe are barely comparable to Shinagawa or Hakata, despite seeing significant traffic on the same Shinkansen lines.

New Delhi railway station is a bit like Shin-Osaka in this respect since the commercial hub of Osakaprefecture is located towards further south in and around Umeda and Namba regions and consequently a commercial development of train and subway stations in these regions has brought in handsome returns. JR Osaka benefits from being in Umedaarea, while Shin-Osaka remains relatively spartan despite a plethora of shokudos and omiyage kiosks; that's another thing we can emulate.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 28 Feb 2015 07:12

Yes, absolutely. The line before what you quoted says "This works most effectively for urban transit or suburban rail terminii." I am familiar with and have used all the stations you have quoted several times, except for Hakata, since I've family there. Even though it's not a commercial hub, Shin-Osaka is still a sizeable station with dozen+ platforms as I recall. Pretty big for something created because it was too difficult to realign the Tokaido/Sanyo Shinkansen line further south. Shin-Osaka is mainly a transit hub, while Umeda and Namba have large commercial districts surrounding them. I stayed within walking distance of Umeda station rather recently.

IR does not need to turn every station into a huge. It can get most of its gains from a handful of large ones. E.g. Churchgate, CST, Dadar, Bandra etc in Mumbai and Chennai Central/Park at Chennai. New Delhi's best commercial hub stations are probably New Delhi and Connaught Place/Rajiv Chowk stations.

ritesh · Post by **ritesh** » 28 Feb 2015 08:37

Whatever is done for commercial realisation, one thing needs to be considered is that localised solution for local needs.
No one solution will / can be replicated pan city or pan India basis.

With regards to making railway station, one needs to look in to how CIDCO developed Navi Mumbai station in early 90s or new Harbour line station in suburban railway network from Andheri onwards.

SSundar · Post by **SSundar** » 28 Feb 2015 12:40

The government has gone completely silent about HSR. What happened to the Japan offer to build out the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector and the alleged Chinese offer on Chennai-Delhi?

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 28 Feb 2015 20:18

SSundar wrote:The government has gone completely silent about HSR. What happened to the Japan offer to build out the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector and the alleged Chinese offer on Chennai-Delhi?

IIRC, Suresh Prabhu mentioned that feasibility study is going on and would be completed sometime this year.

from budget text.

62. Madam, we will continue to pursue with vigour our special projects like High Speed Rail between Mumbai- Ahmadabad. The feasibility study for this is in advanced stage and report is expected by the mid of this year. Quick and appropriate action will be taken once the report is available with us. Regarding the other high speed routes on the diamond quadrilateral, studies are being commissioned.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 28 Feb 2015 21:11

if feasibility still going on - it means not feasible, nobody wants to put their neck and say it directly. it will be given a quiet committee burial.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Feb 2015 21:50

the mysore-blr-chennai route was surveyed by a team from china. the route alignments(mainly less curvature) they said would be necessary for a true HSR has been deemed unviable for cost reasons and the project stands cancelled.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 01 Mar 2015 05:57

don't understand how chinese team is more qualified than an electrified, super advancing India?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 01 Mar 2015 11:05

Singha wrote:the mysore-blr-chennai route was surveyed by a team from china. the route alignments(mainly less curvature) they said would be necessary for a true HSR has been deemed unviable for cost reasons and the project stands cancelled.

E Sreedharan himself suggested Mysore-Bangalore is not suitable for HSR because it's just a 140km distance . The trains take 30-40km just to get upto speed, was the contention. That sounds like a very low rate of acceleration to me, even 140km should not preclude HSR connectivity on that sector. All the fastest Shinkansens still stop at both Osaka and Kyoto, which are 15 minutes apart on the bullet train.

negi · Post by **negi** » 01 Mar 2015 11:17

I personally do not care much about HSR , KA is anyways beyond hope we do not even have required number of lines forget HSR. Journey from here to Goa via train is almost as long as taking GT or TN express from Chennai to Delhi , I mean when you factor in distance and time taken.

Kashi · Post by **Kashi** » 01 Mar 2015 11:27

Suraj wrote:E Sreedharan himself suggested Mysore-Bangalore is not suitable for HSR because it's just a 140km distance . The trains take 30-40km just to get upto speed, was the contention. That sounds like a very low rate of acceleration to me, even 140km should not preclude HSR connectivity on that sector. All the fastest Shinkansens still stop at both Osaka and Kyoto, which are 15 minutes apart on the bullet train.

Moreover, this would have been on a Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai route and as you pointed out trains stop at Shin-Osaka and Kyoto enroute to other destinations.

Ultimately, the feasibility of a route would be determined by the potential ridership. I would think that any route involving Bangalre and Chennai should not suffer on that account.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Mar 2015 17:04

SaiK wrote:don't understand how chinese team is more qualified than an electrified, super advancing India?

Well china has built and deployed highest miles of HSR in the world.
They have reached stage of exporting both HSR rolling stock and construction service.

While we talk they walk as in building worlds highest railroad to Lhasa or enormous bridges in a fourth of the time. They are a superpawa in civil engg now.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 01 Mar 2015 22:08

ok sorry, i was thinking HSR < 200kmph lines, that we are planning to upgrade all existing lines.. this HSR == bullet speed walas (>250-300 kmph) was not on my thoughts.

from my definition of HSR, why do we need 30-40km for trains to speed up? it can pretty much get to 200kmph in about 5 km with no stops. i agree, the land space is important to get near straight line rails for such trains.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 02 Mar 2015 01:10

for the new coach designs, railways should also look at side impact crumple zone/rubber/silicon(fire resistant) filled bodies and in between coaches vestibule based crumple zones to withstand 50-60 kmph accidents.

during accidents, the impact on structures inside the train matters - especially those sleeper beds made soft edges and corners, or fiber glass based. instead of chain, a better locking system that can take impacts, etc.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Mar 2015 02:25

Kashi wrote:
Suraj wrote:E Sreedharan himself suggested Mysore-Bangalore is not suitable for HSR because it's just a 140km distance . The trains take 30-40km just to get upto speed, was the contention. That sounds like a very low rate of acceleration to me, even 140km should not preclude HSR connectivity on that sector. All the fastest Shinkansens still stop at both Osaka and Kyoto, which are 15 minutes apart on the bullet train.
Moreover, this would have been on a Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai route and as you pointed out trains stop at Shin-Osaka and Kyoto enroute to other destinations.

Ultimately, the feasibility of a route would be determined by the potential ridership. I would think that any route involving Bangalre and Chennai should not suffer on that account.

Mangalore-Mysore-Bangalore-Chennai route is somewhat similar to Tokyo-{Kansai}-Hakata route. Two somewhat disjoint markets with some through ridership but plenty of ridership in the intra-Karnataka section and Bangalore-Chennai section separately, with Bangalore itself serving as a stop analogous to Shin-Osaka separating Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen sections. Mysore itself is about as far away from Bangalore is Nagoya is from Kyoto, both of which are always stops on the Tokaido Shinkansen.

An HSR would make sense if the whole route is built out. Mysore-Bangalore itself is probably not worth the investment. The best option would be to build Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Hyderabad and Bangalore-Hyderabad first, then build spurs to Mysore and further to Mangalore fed by the traffic and commercial benefits accruing from major cities being interconnected by HSR. I would agree with Sreedharan that building Mysore-Bangalore independently of any other doesn't make sense. Given the choice, building any of the other 3 routes connecting a pair of major metros is more sensible, esp Bangalore-Chennai.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 02 Mar 2015 04:32

HSR is simply too expensive to build in India, at least for now. People would not be able to afford it. But increasing the speed to 170-220 km per hour may not require new corridors, just better tracks. Maysore, BLR, Chennai would take 2,3 hours. In stead of useing the billions to cut it down by 30 min, one could in stead use the money to improve the connectivity in the cities. One has to travel to and from the railway station. The journy to the railwaystation may actually take 1- 2 hours itself.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 02 Mar 2015 04:40

Suraj wrote:
Singha wrote:the mysore-blr-chennai route was surveyed by a team from china. the route alignments(mainly less curvature) they said would be necessary for a true HSR has been deemed unviable for cost reasons and the project stands cancelled.
E Sreedharan himself suggested Mysore-Bangalore is not suitable for HSR because it's just a 140km distance . The trains take 30-40km just to get upto speed, was the contention. That sounds like a very low rate of acceleration to me, even 140km should not preclude HSR connectivity on that sector. All the fastest Shinkansens still stop at both Osaka and Kyoto, which are 15 minutes apart on the bullet train.

140 Km would only take 1 hour at an average speed of 140 km per hour. A bullet train would cost some 10 million dollars per km (ballpark). Spending 1,4 billion dollars to shorten the ride to 40 min does not make any sensce. In stead spend the money of metro in the city.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 02 Mar 2015 05:25

good info on wiki on high speed rail in India

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 02 Mar 2015 06:08

all these dedicated freight lines must be mapped to states that is most industrially active. the map is not good as of now.

Kashi · Post by **Kashi** » 02 Mar 2015 07:08

Suraj wrote:An HSR would make sense if the whole route is built out. Mysore-Bangalore itself is probably not worth the investment. The best option would be to build Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Hyderabad and Bangalore-Hyderabad first, then build spurs to Mysore and further to Mangalore fed by the traffic and commercial benefits accruing from major cities being interconnected by HSR. I would agree with Sreedharan that building Mysore-Bangalore independently of any other doesn't make sense. Given the choice, building any of the other 3 routes connecting a pair of major metros is more sensible, esp Bangalore-Chennai.

Absolutely, it would make sense to link up Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Hyderabad and Bangalore-Hyderabad. Mysore I can understand, but Mangalore I am a little wary of. I suspect it may end up being another Joetsu/Niigata Shinkansen.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Mar 2015 09:32

imo its best to spread the limited money around, replace the 1000s of old bridges that need replacement, improve stations, safety measures and try to improve the average speed of all express trains to around 100kmph (to account for stops, this means they would need to cruise at 130-150kmph in between stations)...our current new gen rolling stocks and gapless welded rails can take that speed.

extra tracks will be needed in busy corridors and in single track sections to make this possible.

this will have far more benefit than a few HSR

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 02 Mar 2015 10:06

Singha wrote:imo its best to spread the limited money around, replace the 1000s of old bridges that need replacement, improve stations, safety measures and try to improve the average speed of all express trains to around 100kmph (to account for stops, this means they would need to cruise at 130-150kmph in between stations)...

And all unproductive stops needs to be removed. Many express trains, become local commuter trains because politicians introduce stops for such trains at their favourite railway stations. My understanding is that IR has already started this exercise. In Kerala, there were stops where even the cost of diesel spent on starting the loco (after the stop at the station) could not be compensated with the ticket collection from that station.

The "train sets" (i.e specific set of loco, and coaches also having motive power) also seems to be a way to reduce the running time. I remember reading it in IRFCA forum, that in some routes the overall journey time would come down by 3-4 hours if "train sets" are brought in.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Mar 2015 12:09

the train sets would help the acceleration I suppose esp for the ER 25-coach trains we use, but apart from fairly light duty commuter EMUs do we have the tech inhouse or a rafale type payout would be needed to source it ?

but the best of trains is not helped by congested corridors and signaling systems unable to space trains closer. for comparison at major US airports they seem able to handle parallel takeoff/landing ops and also space the planes really close on inbound channel..we seem unable to do that during the domestic peak hours.

someone had published a GPS driven speed graph of the august kranti Rajdhani....I had posted it once here....its very uneven and not much time at the 120+ level, though stops are few...must be signaling issues and slowing down on weak sections and bridges. this kills the average speed/

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 02 Mar 2015 12:32

Do we even consistently reach the max speeds our current coaches can get upto? If not, we should get that sorted out before going in for greenfield bullet trains. Given that we don't really have much money to spare, we should get our coach designs sorted, work on cleanliness and removing obstacles to running smoothly and without undue slowing/stopping. That'll reduce running times considerably.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 02 Mar 2015 13:16

Singha wrote:someone had published a GPS driven speed graph of the august kranti Rajdhani....I had posted it once here....its very uneven and not much time at the 120+ level, though stops are few...must be signaling issues and slowing down on weak sections and bridges. this kills the average speed/

Prasad wrote:Do we even consistently reach the max speeds our current coaches can get upto? If not, we should get that sorted out before going in for greenfield bullet trains.

Singha, you are right. IRs current infrastructure does not allow too much of high speed traffic. And to improve the infrastructure, that itself would become a multi-year project. One thing in signalling there is too much manual operations at the moment. The current "absolute block system" which is used in majority of the country, limits the number of trains which can cross through quickly. But take Mumbai suburban network as an example. Here things are different. In peak hours a train crosses a station once in 3 mins. This is achieved through very many things. One, they have the slow and fast tracks for up & down (four tracks), then they also have the Automatic Block System, where signals are automatically controlled based on the movement of the train. A similar system should be tried out at least in the trunk routes in India. The present system depends mainly on station masters & cabin men to operate the block instruments, set the route, change the signals etc. And if there are level crossing gates, the signals have to get inter-locked as well to ensure train and road vehicle safety. So all these human effort required work slows down the system.

Even the high speed trains, get a "slack" some where during the run. This is how they manage to arrive "on time" at the destination station. What I used to do is to take a print out from the TrainEnquiry.com web site. It shows the time table as well as the distance between two points. If we check that, we can find out that some times 120 mins is given to reach a point 60kms away from each other. In such stretches, the delays are all made up and every body gets a feeling that the train is "on time".

chilarai · Post by **chilarai** » 02 Mar 2015 13:55

Sachin wrote:
Even the high speed trains, get a "slack" some where during the run. This is how they manage to arrive "on time" at the destination station. What I used to do is to take a print out from the TrainEnquiry.com web site. It shows the time table as well as the distance between two points. If we check that, we can find out that some times 120 mins is given to reach a point 60kms away from each other. In such stretches, the delays are all made up and every body gets a feeling that the train is "on time".

Guess these sections are arranged to be during the night time . That should be reason we always hear on late running trains "Raat mein make up karega" ( It will make up lost time at night). Thats why 5 hrs late training end up reaching 30 minutes before time at Malda early morning for poori sabzi

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Mar 2015 17:35

^^ true that. clever psyops strategy.

the absolute block system and its associated fallback token n basket system has been in use since the british era right? the railway passenger traffic must have grown 10X since 1950 and so too the freight....clearly the old ways cannot scale up anymore no matter how much people and glue we throw at it.

Picklu · Post by **Picklu** » 02 Mar 2015 20:29

most of the train journeys should be made night journeys for the railways to be competitive. The nightlong chennai bangalore does not need to be shortened further than say to make a chennai delhi, chennai kolkata, chennai mumbai, mumbai delhi, mumbai kolkata and delhi kolkata a single night journey. Way more bang for the buck than the token HSR here and there. People would happily move back to train from plane if they can cover these journeys in a single night sleep.
SO, IMVHO, Prabhuji has taken a very good step with mumbai delhi and delhi kolkata rajdhani.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Mar 2015 20:49

pehle sauchalaya phir devalaya

pehle semi-HSR phir HSR

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 02 Mar 2015 21:31

Singha wrote:the absolute block system and its associated fallback token n basket system has been in use since the british era right?

And it is was a very efficient system. As per my understanding; the British theory was that it would take three people (Indians off course

) to make a mistake so that trains can collide with each other. But times have changed, and again IR can take a few clues on how trains are now operated across Europe (not even UK). Centralised control systems, better communication between the train crew and the controllers etc. We also need to ensure that for a high speed run the tracks also must be well laid out, with minimum chances of external interference - in the form of cows, human beings, vehicles etc.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Mar 2015 08:05

HSR does not have to begin with 350km/h service. It would be great to have services that consistently run at 150-160kmph and top out at 200-225km/h. That in itself requires huge investments in infrastructure. A few shorter routes can run much faster trainsets once viable, but until then, the $70 billion in track and infrastructure investment over the next 4 years should focus on improving average speeds.

Back in the early-mid 1990s, Chinese rail speeds were not much different from ours. While they did play around with HSR (the failed China Star project), they spent a lot more simply on getting track and signalling improved, such that they could reliably run long distance trains at 150km/h or more. A reasonable goal is a few HSR services in operation in the early 2020s. Until then, all investments must upgrade track and signaling, smoothen curves, remove junction bottlenecks and of course offload freight services onto the DFC.

$70 billion is a lot of money going into these, considering they got practically nothing more than basic operational upkeep investment for so long. It has the potential to generate substantial and very visible incremental benefit in railway operations by 2019.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 03 Mar 2015 08:10

^^And rightly so, the govt. is targeting 9 routes for speeds of 160 kmph to 200 kmph. I guess that would translate to an average speed of 110 kmph to 140 kmph though I wish it could be more. I think this should not take more than 2 years.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Mar 2015 08:47

That itself is a big jump. Currently, the fastest train is the Bhopal Shatabdi, which does 707kms in 8:25, or 89km/h (55mph). It hits 150-160km/h in sections. But it has 10 stops. It can't go any faster with that many stops, unless they create a separate express version that only stops at say, Mathura, Agra and Gwalior or Jhansi. The Mumbai Rajdhani is much better suited to experiment with sustained high speed runs of 150-200km/h based on inter-stop distances, though I'm completely unfamiliar with the route capability to handle those speeds.

One of the ways the Chinese built up speeds was to add many trains with different speed/service levels. They could only do this effectively once the trackage and signalling could support such throughput without slow trains holding up fast ones. The $70 billion investment focuses no these concerns as well, with money going into signaling, double and triple tracking and significantly greater electrification, cutting out the diesel-electric switching times.

Even the prestigious Mumbai Rajdhani route was apparently only fully electrified in 2012. Currently, both the up and down trains depart at 4:30PM and arrive at 8:30am. That's 16hrs to do 1400km. Increase speed to 120km/h and it becomes 11hrs. 150km/h and it becomes 9hrs. That's the speed improvement the Railway Minister is targeting in the next 4 years on that route, to enable 10-11hr journeys that would attract business traffic.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Mar 2015 09:24

the blr-chennai shatabdi currently takes 5 hrs to cover 362km but one has to factor in 1.5 hrs in blr to reach the station in time and another 1 hr in chennai to reach destination also. if the journey could be shortened to around 3 hrs with such improvements would be more convenient for the huge number of business, tourist and family travellers on this route. with 4 halts, it will need a crusing speed of 140kmph which the current rakes can do if track and signaling permits. the wap5/7 or whatever electric locos pull can also do it i think...number of coaches is only around 12.