Indian Railways Thread

[kvraghav]

^^^

[Kashi]

The bullet train ticket costs in Japan are comparable to.air tickets. But in India they are likely to be cheaper because 1) the air tickets are comparatively costlier, 2) labour is cheaper 3) electric power, which is a major contributor of operating cost will be cheaper.

Ultimately, it all depends on volume of traffic and how greedy the operator is...but the rates have to be low for it to succeed, IMO less than low cost air ticket.

cost of labor and electricity is a very temporary phenomena. Both will rise rapidly as living conditions and aspirations and cost of living improves/increases.

no one can accurately project for 2023 or beyond other than out of some academic interest. There are so many variables.

major airline costs are in dollars, even in India.

Taiwan High Speed Railway, built using the same Japanese technology, same rolling stock (slightly modified in appearance) and running a distance of 350 km- ticket prices are LESS THAN HALF that of Shinkansen fare between Tokyo and Osaka. Heck, the fare between Osaka and Nagoya (which is less than the distance between Tapiei and Kaoshung) is much higher than the THR fare.

Taiwan has a standard (and cost of living) pretty comparable with Japan and if they can run the trains at a lower cost, don't you think it's reasonable to assume that the fares can be accordingly mapped in India as well?

[chetak]

^^^^^^^

This will be an extra premium service. Politically, they may not be able to price it very high without blow back from some "socialist" political parties. If made truly jantha class, the upwardly mobile folks may not use it.

tricky balance. Also, I don't think that any loss making service will survive in 2023.

[SSundar]

By all means, have it your way, saar.

Chetak, in air crashes, head-on collisions are the rarest of rare due to technology that prevents it. In HSR, collisions and derailments are the biggest killers. The same technology measures can be used to minimize or eliminate those. Japan has had a crash free run of HSRs for decades.

All other crash scenarios such as dead engine, stalling, flying into a mountain in low visibility, terrorist bombing, etc. are unlikely or more survivable in HSR.

[vina]

^^^^^^^

This will be an extra premium service. Politically, they may not be able to price it very high without blow back from some "socialist" political parties. If made truly jantha class, the upwardly mobile folks may not use it.

tricky balance. Also, I don't think that any loss making service will survive in 2023.

I am not sure AI/IA made a profit for more than a decade now and will not make one for the next 10 years as well. However, the nice thing is, you can sell off the AI/IA assets (largely planes and stuff), liquidate assets and exit.

For this HSR white elephant, there is no liquidating anything and being able to get out. I am really really afraid that we will be saddled with some incredibly high cost white elephant that will suck this country dry to the bones and make us bankrupt.

Instead of HSR, airlines are a far more flexible and viable option for high speed travel. Heck, if that route doesn't do well for whatever reason, you can try another route or sell the plane off ! If a HSR route doesnt work for whatever reason, it is a massive disaster financially and there is always the pressure of having it subsidised and run at a loss anyways.

This kind of idiotic decisions is what makes me very very afraid for India. If Modi had any sense he would get the Freight Corridor implemented fully and quickly , but no, he has to have an Indira/Nehru kind of white elephant to his name at the expense of bankrupting the country.

[Supratik]

The Japanese to the best of my info don't invest in white elephants. That is why a feasibility study was done.

[johneeG]

^^^^^^^

This will be an extra premium service. Politically, they may not be able to price it very high without blow back from some "socialist" political parties. If made truly jantha class, the upwardly mobile folks may not use it.

tricky balance. Also, I don't think that any loss making service will survive in 2023.

I am not sure AI/IA made a profit for more than a decade now and will not make one for the next 10 years as well. However, the nice thing is, you can sell off the AI/IA assets (largely planes and stuff), liquidate assets and exit.

For this HSR white elephant, there is no liquidating anything and being able to get out. I am really really afraid that we will be saddled with some incredibly high cost white elephant that will suck this country dry to the bones and make us bankrupt.

Instead of HSR, airlines are a far more flexible and viable option for high speed travel. Heck, if that route doesn't do well for whatever reason, you can try another route or sell the plane off ! If a HSR route doesnt work for whatever reason, it is a massive disaster financially and there is always the pressure of having it subsidised and run at a loss anyways.

This kind of idiotic decisions is what makes me very very afraid for India. If Modi had any sense he would get the Freight Corridor implemented fully and quickly , but no, he has to have an Indira/Nehru kind of white elephant to his name at the expense of bankrupting the country.

I don't know why a fast train would fail in a populated and large country like India. As long as the train is as fast as the plane and cheaper, then the train will be easily preferred. I assume that running a train is any day cheaper than running planes. Of course, trains need lot of initial investment unlike the planes. But, planes need lot of fuel everyday. But, trains can carry many more people in one go than the planes. And each train journeys is cheaper than the journey of a plane, so the trains can make more journeys. The only sticking point is the huge initial investment in the infrastructure and to see whether there is a return on initial investment.

[vina]

Chetak, in air crashes, head-on collisions are the rarest of rare due to technology that prevents it. In HSR, collisions and derailments are the biggest killers. The same technology measures can be used to minimize or eliminate those. Japan has had a crash free run of HSRs for decades.

All other crash scenarios such as dead engine, stalling, flying into a mountain in low visibility, terrorist bombing, etc. are unlikely or more survivable in HSR.

You are comparing apples to oranges. In Japan you have a highly disciplined , law abiding society where people follow rules and have far greater civic sense.

In India you have absolute anarchy where people cannot even drive on lanes.. oh forget lanes, not even resist riding on sidewalks on their motorcycles, have no discipline, you have cows on the roads, you have pigs running around , you can't even have garbage segregated , collected and properly managed because it is all mafia and corruption driven top to bottom, you have people throwing stones at normal Indian Railway trains and hurting passengers seriously (I shudder to think what will happen when these yahoos throw stones at a train running at 250 mph), heck, you can't even have morons control their bladders and feel it is a God given right to urinate wherever they want, and morons in Chi-Chi apartments like mine still think it is their right to get their dogs poo all over the place and it is the housekeeping folks job to clean up , and it literally takes the pain of very serious action to get them and active policing to clean up and they still take the opportunity to cheat and leave lump of dog turd all over when no one is looking and they can get away with it .

And THIS is the kind of place where you think you can have stuff like fenced off uninterrupted safe tracks (the fences will be cut within 2 hrs of it it being built for people to access the other side of their tracks for whatever purposes), and there will be innumerable cases of cattle and people and whatever being hit by the high speed trains ? We first need to get lot more civilised in our public behaviour and get a lot richer and less uncouth before we think of stuff like this.

In the mean time, get more airplanes in the air , rationalise the ridiculous taxation rubbish that is ruining airlines, kick all the Baboons in Rajiv Bhavan / Civil Aviation Ministry in the nuts and send them home and put some rational industry people in their place to regulate the industry on rational lines and you will have a faster, safer and lot cheaper mass long distance transit system in place (at much lesser financial and other risks) and a system that actually makes money in the process , rather than a perpetual bottomless subsidy mooching pit.

[chetak]

The Japanese to the best of my info don't invest in white elephants. That is why a feasibility study was done.

feasibility study was done a number of times to revive AI too.

A japanese feasibility is not the holy grail of project performance or even viability. After the japanese leave, the IR is the only backstop. They already have ready made excuses for everything.

fukushima also would have had a very deep feasibility study. It was fukued good and proper.

It was not a white elephant but it is certainly a very radioactive one now.

[vina]

A japanese feasibility is not the holy grail of project performance or even viability. After the japanese leave, the IR is the only backstop. They already have ready made excuses for everything.

A big difference is that the Japanese BUILT everything (including the last tiny nail) of their HSR system and cycled the money within the Japanese economy. Here we will be importing every little thing (including the rails, the Japanese sure as hell are not going to be buying the steel rails made by SAIL and the ballast and sleepers from IR facilities) and we will be paying through our nose in ForEx for all that.

If the Japanese HSR went bust, no issues, it was spent internally and nothing happens at a macro level,. If we go bust, we pay Japan and go perennially bust.

[johneeG]

Vina,
Yea, like Laloo once said that only rich people want roads. Wonderful!


If the logic is that Indians are not good enough for bullet trains, then shouldn't the same argument stand for all other technologies? I think you are just showing the Mani Shankar Iyer type elitism.

[Supratik]

Fukushima is an accident. You are stretching the argument. AI feasibility study was done but never implemented. The Japanese have over the decades invested in a lot of projects in India and to the best of my knowledge majority are successful. There is no reason why HSR will not be successful in a populous and developing economy like India as long as the ticket prices are competitive with airfare. That was one of the purposes of feasibility study. My previous concern was regarding IR involvement in this but I believe this is going to be a different entity. Both IR and HSR can do their own things.

[Supratik]

By that logic nothing built by Indians can be trusted. That is called schizophrenia. The Indian economy is going to be $6-7 trillion by 2023 when the HSR starts and the cost of this HSR is $14 billion over 50 years. I think this is irrational fear mongering.

[vina]

Fukushima is an accident. You are stretching the argument. AI feasibility study was done but never implemented. The Japanese have over the decades invested in a lot of projects in India and to the best of my knowledge majority are successful. There is no reason why HSR will not be successful in a populous and developing economy like India as long as the ticket prices are competitive with airfare. That was one of the purposes of feasibility study. My previous concern was regarding IR involvement in this but I believe this is going to be a different entity. Both IR and HSR can do their own things.

Leaving out Maruti (which succeeded because they were given a monopoly and no competition allowed for close to 15 years), overwhelming majority of Japanese investments in India have been dreadful failures and have not made any money ! Other than Suzuki and Honda (in 2 wheelers, I am not sure their car business makes money), please name ONE large well known Japanese company that has invested big in India and made money!

[vina]

By that logic nothing built by Indians can be trusted. That is called schizophrenia. The Indian economy is going to be $6-7 trillion by 2023 when the HSR starts and the cost of this HSR is $14 billion over 50 years. I think this is irrational fear mongering.

That is a bit rich, coming from someone who lives in a make believe world of fanciful assumptions , which i am bolding below.

I don't know why a fast train would fail in a populated and large country like India (duh.. the average per capita income in India is around $1000 and they can't afford it!). As long as the train is as fast as the plane and cheaper (it can't be and it isn't. Budget airlines are faster and cheaper than many HSRs for > 500km runs), then the train will be easily preferred. I assume that running a train is any day cheaper than running planes (you assume wrong). Of course, trains need lot of initial investment unlike the planes. But, planes need lot of fuel everyday (okay, so trains will need fuel only once a while , while on other times they run on air!). But, trains can carry many more people in one go than the planes. And each train journeys is cheaper than the journey of a plane, so the trains can make more journeys (planes are faster and make more journeys, HSR are as expensive if not more than budget airlines) . The only sticking point is the huge initial investment in the infrastructure and to see whether there is a return on initial investment (yeah...a big one)

[Supratik]

I am talking of projects not companies. Japanese funds like JICA are one of the most sought after investment sources in India. Everyone from Mumbai to Mamata is running after them. Much more than World bank or ADB. Now things can go wrong e.g. Laloo becomes RM and declares a Gharib HSR then it is a different issue. You are being irrational saying that $14 billion over 50 yrs is going to bankrupt the country or that nothing built by Indians can be trusted.

[vina]

India SHOULD not invest in this HSR business at this stage of development. It is premature and we cannot afford it. It is okay to wait for a few years until it is affordable and there is always a chance of break throughs happening in this area and we can leapfrog. We have all the options which have great value in waiting and not jumping headlong into what can soon be pretty obsolete dead end stuff.

[vina]

I am talking of projects not companies. Japanese funds like JICA are one of the most sought after investment sources in India. Everyone from Mumbai to Mamata is running after them.

Japanese money is very low cost (even if a lot of it is tied to Japanese supplier credit) and hence people run for it , just like most Mobile providers run to Chinese and their low cost vendor financing for Chinese equipment.

You are being irrational saying that $14 billion over 50 yrs is going to bankrupt the country or that nothing built by Indians can be trusted.

This high fixed cost HSR has all the hall marks of being a massive misadventure on the lines of Modi's Muhammad Bin Thuglaq moment. Far better to get the freight corridors in place which will massively reduce freight cost and under cut more expensive and less efficient road transport and have massive spin off efforts in industry , trade and economy. That is what we need now.

What we DONT need is a massive white elephant meant to move the fat subsidy mooching a**es of people where airlines would serve the purpose better.

[chetak]

Fukushima is an accident. You are stretching the argument. AI feasibility study was done but never implemented. The Japanese have over the decades invested in a lot of projects in India and to the best of my knowledge majority are successful. There is no reason why HSR will not be successful in a populous and developing economy like India as long as the ticket prices are competitive with airfare. That was one of the purposes of feasibility study. My previous concern was regarding IR involvement in this but I believe this is going to be a different entity. Both IR and HSR can do their own things.

yes, you got that right.

It was an accident waiting to happen.

Risks due to the tsunami, the high seawall, main and emergency power supplies among other things were not assessed properly by the japanese themselves. Those faulty inputs came back to bite them hard many many years later. Those feasibility study teams were only human and they did their best at that time.

The HSR will require a special and dedicated team comprising of thousands of people and the IR unions are not about to allow that and also because of the speeds, even hitting a buffalo will derail it. A whole new culture will have to come up to reach japanese standards of no accidents. It is better to ramp up slowly and get things right rather than jump onto the HSR bandwagon right away and struggle to operate it. One of the very first things to suffer in case of difficulties will be the much vaunted speed of the HSR and reducing it to another fairly fast rajdhani type of train

The IR has staff starting from lower standard class ( education qualification wise) pass to very nimble folks from the IITs and other top ranked colleges. Such disparate groups don't jell so very easily.

everyone wants to have such a spectacular project, working properly and to showcase the achievements of the country and that is why caution is being advised.

[hnair]

Amtrak's Acela is a great example of a fast-train which wont break the bank, but does the job with less money than true HSR. They share tracks with normal trains and can run on upgraded tracks (not highly expensive full HSR spec tracks)

Speeding up current tracks via efficient signalling + dedicated separate tracks (even if not the superb specs of DFW, but aligned a bit far from denser urban areas) for freight would help keep costs down. Route even the long distance express trains to these separate tracks, to byepass smaller cities and we can buffer up any delays caused by slower goods movements, local train prioritization etc. The current existing tracks can run MEMU for inter-district travel and faster Acela types for inter-city travel upto 600 kms. Right now, HSR costs are a bit too high and might not be viable in lots of places to implement.

[Supratik]

@vina,

All that can go on simultaneously. The DFCs are going to be massively expanded similar to the GQ and NSEW corridors. I don't think it is going to be a white elephant as long as the ticket prices are competitive with airfare and the line is eventually extended to Delhi.
Since neither you nor me can stop it now, we can come back after 10 yrs and discuss whether it is a white elephant or not.


@chetak,

The best feasibility study can be outdone by the worst disaster. What you are talking about is implementation which is going to be a challenge and I agree on it.

[chetak]

Amtrak's Acela is a great example of a fast-train which wont break the bank, but does the job with less money than true HSR. They share tracks with normal trains and can run on upgraded tracks (not highly expensive full HSR spec tracks)

Speeding up current tracks via efficient signalling + dedicated separate tracks (even if not the superb specs of DFW, but aligned a bit far from denser urban areas) for freight would help keep costs down. Route even the long distance express trains to these separate tracks, to byepass smaller cities and we can buffer up any delays caused by slower goods movements, local train prioritization etc. The current existing tracks can run MEMU for inter-district travel and faster Acela types for inter-city travel upto 600 kms. Right now, HSR costs are a bit too high and might not be viable in lots of places to implement.

no offense to anyone but welcome saar, as one of the saner voices. what you suggest is eminently doable and mostly in the remaining time left, except for the new tracks, which will of course, take a bit longer.

[johneeG]

I don't know why a fast train would fail in a populated and large country like India (duh.. the average per capita income in India is around $1000 and they can't afford it!). As long as the train is as fast as the plane and cheaper (it can't be and it isn't. Budget airlines are faster and cheaper than many HSRs for > 500km runs), then the train will be easily preferred. I assume that running a train is any day cheaper than running planes (you assume wrong). Of course, trains need lot of initial investment unlike the planes. But, planes need lot of fuel everyday (okay, so trains will need fuel only once a while , while on other times they run on air!). But, trains can carry many more people in one go than the planes. And each train journeys is cheaper than the journey of a plane, so the trains can make more journeys (planes are faster and make more journeys, HSR are as expensive if not more than budget airlines) . The only sticking point is the huge initial investment in the infrastructure and to see whether there is a return on initial investment (yeah...a big one)

I think you are replying to the wrong poster. This was my post.

- Trains run on electricity unlike the planes which need a lot of special oil(quite costly). So, I am assuming that overall, trains are cheaper to run without counting the initial investment.
- My impression is that the airlines don't seem to be making much profit because air-travel is extremely costly in terms of fuel. Trains are much more cheaper in terms of fuel. If there is a comparable speed achieved by the trains, then the trains will be cheaper in the long run. Each train journey will be cheaper and can carry many more passengers than an air trip. So, overall each train trip will make more money than an air trip and cost less without counting the initial investment.
- These fast trains seem to be about as fast as an average domestic plane including all the waiting at the airports and other associated time requirements.
- About per capita income: well, the ticket pricing will get adjusted according to the affordability. The same applies to domestic airlines also. If domestic airlines are feasible, then the fast trains are also feasible. Surely, these trains would be much more profitable than domestic airlines(fast trains are competing with domestic airlines which are in deep losses). And don't forget that India is projected to rise.

[chetak]

@vina,

All that can go on simultaneously. The DFCs are going to be massively expanded similar to the GQ and NSEW corridors. I don't think it is going to be a white elephant as long as the ticket prices are competitive with airfare and the line is eventually extended to Delhi.
Since neither you nor me can stop it now, we can come back after 10 yrs and discuss whether it is a white elephant or not.


@chetak,

The best feasibility study can be outdone by the worst disaster. What you are talking about is implementation which is going to be a challenge and I agree on it.

saar, the area is tsunami prone. Even the kindergarten kids there know it. The risk assessment was thoroughly and completely effed up, period.

BTW, what if the IR does not implement completely and fully, the recommendations of the japanese feasibility study because some idiot babu felt that it was overkill?? and what if that came back to bite you later??

and what if the "feasibility study" misses out a few things like in fukushima??

better to ramp up slowly, not forcing the pace, acclimatize and then move forward better prepared.

After all, one HSR is not going to change the fortunes of the entire country.

[SSundar]

Vina saar, let me address two points that you raised with a real life example: China.

Whatever your criticism of Indian people's public social behavior might be, the Chinese are far worse. Many of us have seen it at home (China) and abroad (US, etc.). However, their HSR runs spic-and-span, on-time and in the most professional manner possible. We already know that Indians do not spit and urinate in the middle of our mega-malls. How did that happen? When you build something worth preserving, the people change their behavior.

The other part about airlines - I have had the (mis)fortune of taking a domestic flight between Beijing and Shanghai. The congested airports plus airspace means delays and delays. They run large aircraft such as A330s and B767s because of the high demand. The only flights that can be expected to fly on time are the early morning first flights of the day. Everything else is subject to cascading delays. Sounds familiar? The same story in Indian domestic flights already.

Adding more airline capacity in India really means building airports as big as those in the US, buying up bigger planes and building more ATC capacity. The costs would soon far exceed the $14 billion quoted.

[member_28108]

If anything many would prefer to get on a fast train.If I could reach Mumbai from Bangalore or Ahmadabad in 3-4 hours it would be faster than going to the airport ,security check etc etc and then the reverse process to get out of the airport. If I could reach Chennai in an hour from Bangalore and vice versa most people would actually prefer that to a plane.

[Suraj]

no one seems to have made any credible analysis so far. It's a very complex, niche project and many project variables and risk factors are unknown to the aam jantha.

Maybe, the feasibility report will surface sometime in the public domain, even if it is just the bare bones version, just enough to get some guru started off on the right track.

Why not just say the obvious that you've been implying across 2-3 pages: "bullet train scam!" ?

[SSundar]

no offense to anyone but welcome saar, as one of the saner voices. what you suggest is eminently doable and mostly in the remaining time left, except for the new tracks, which will of course, take a bit longer.

Chetak, most of the pro-HSR posters on this thread are NOT insisting on creating exclusive HSR-only tracks. The assumption here is that if you built broad gauge tracks that can carry a certain weight at 350 KMPH, the same tracks would support slower passenger or freight trains at lower speeds. It would be a fundamental requirement to ensure maximum utilization of an expensive resource. The tracks and signaling need to be reusable.

That way, even if the HSR project ends up being a white elephant, we only write off the money spent on the train sets and not the money spent on tracks and signaling.

[member_20292]

The Japanese to the best of my info don't invest in white elephants. That is why a feasibility study was done.

oh they do. their own white elephant shinkasen has grounded their economy for years.

india does need to take care .

[Singha]

>> their own white elephant shinkasen has grounded their economy for years

[chetak]

{quote="vina"}

I don't know why a fast train would fail in a populated and large country like India (duh.. the average per capita income in India is around $1000 and they can't afford it!). As long as the train is as fast as the plane and cheaper (it can't be and it isn't. Budget airlines are faster and cheaper than many HSRs for > 500km runs), then the train will be easily preferred. I assume that running a train is any day cheaper than running planes (you assume wrong). Of course, trains need lot of initial investment unlike the planes. But, planes need lot of fuel everyday (okay, so trains will need fuel only once a while , while on other times they run on air!). But, trains can carry many more people in one go than the planes. And each train journeys is cheaper than the journey of a plane, so the trains can make more journeys (planes are faster and make more journeys, HSR are as expensive if not more than budget airlines) . The only sticking point is the huge initial investment in the infrastructure and to see whether there is a return on initial investment (yeah...a big one){/quote}

I think you are replying to the wrong poster. This was my post.

- Trains run on electricity unlike the planes which need a lot of special oil(quite costly). So, I am assuming that overall, trains are cheaper to run without counting the initial investment.
- My impression is that the airlines don't seem to be making much profit because air-travel is extremely costly in terms of fuel. Trains are much more cheaper in terms of fuel. If there is a comparable speed achieved by the trains, then the trains will be cheaper in the long run. Each train journey will be cheaper and can carry many more passengers than an air trip. So, overall each train trip will make more money than an air trip and cost less without counting the initial investment.
- These fast trains seem to be about as fast as an average domestic plane including all the waiting at the airports and other associated time requirements.
- About per capita income: well, the ticket pricing will get adjusted according to the affordability. The same applies to domestic airlines also. If domestic airlines are feasible, then the fast trains are also feasible. Surely, these trains would be much more profitable than domestic airlines(fast trains are competing with domestic airlines which are in deep losses). And don't forget that India is projected to rise.

why not count initial investments??

Did this fall free from the heavens??

The initial investment in infrastructure for both railway and airways are made by the Indian public. Rail infrastructure is very expensive, much more that airways infrastructure.

In one case the govt uses the rail infrastructure for the general public good and in another case a private airlines investor wants garam, bana bana halwa infrastructure before he comes in and he wants his profits without regard as to the cost of the infrastructure for which he is most reluctant to pay.

Thus, the comparison is apples to oranges. The train tickets are very heavily subsidized including the passenger and the freight segments and so will the HSR tickets also be very highly subsidized.

since the rail infrastructure, is not, so in your face visible, the very poor ROI and obvious loss is silently borne by the poor aam aadmi.

[SSundar]

I am not pointing at any poster in particular, but the objections to HSR on this thread really borrow heavily from the leftist school of thought that has kept us backward for decades. We have covered every aspect from "Indians cannot afford this" to "Indians do not deserve this".

We are also succumbing to the assumption that the Japanese (who have really excelled at squeezing every bit of efficiency in production lines across multiple industries) and the Modi government (which has really done well in fixing leakages and bottlenecks in government processes to ensure every rupee of government spending stretches further) together suffer from megalomania and will create a white elephant that will need to be written off entirely.

Where is the faith, oh ye right wing Yindoo capitalist nut, bhakt BR gurus?

My few experiences of having lived in or traveled to countries that have invested very heavily in transportation infrastructure convince me that

"A nation that moves faster, grows faster"

You can find examples of this in the US Interstate Freeway system, the Japanese Shinkansen, the Chinese HSR and the European TGV and Autobahn systems. We would be hard pressed to find a country or region that went under because it spent lots of money on high speed infrastructure. The positive ripple effects from faster transportation have generally been hard to quantify in advance. This is because the innovation and creativity in countries shapes itself around the new infrastructure and magnifies itself in ways people cannot imagine ahead of time.

[Bade]

This was the costs published for KHSRL in 2011. The relative ratios of each should be same even now and perhaps can be mapped for the Abad-Mumbai case as it is of similar length. These numbers from an SSC post.

civil works : $2.4 billion
track works: $2.0 billion
E&M works: $5.2 billion
Depot: $460 million
rolling Stock : $524 million
Engg service: $426 million
Admin cost: $213 million
Contingency: $544 million
Grand total : $11.8 billion

[Suraj]

The initial investment in infrastructure for both railway and airways are made by the Indian public.

What are these "initial investments" the Indian public will make for this specific project, out of public money ?

[Haresh]

Bullet trains?
HSR??
Progress??


You can't have that, Britain is paying for it all, don't you know?
The poisonous envy continues.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... l#comments

[vina]

We already know that Indians do not spit and urinate in the middle of our mega-malls. How did that happen? When you build something worth preserving, the people change their behavior.

Well, Jayanagar and Basavangudi are worth "preserving" and well built, but when people find a tree or a wall or an empty plot of land, they urinate there and also dump garbage!

The avg ticket size of the apartments I am talking about are upwards of Rs 2crore and the idiots who paid for it or rent it, still think nothing of letting their dogs poo all over the place, in the walkways, lawns, gardens and make them urinate in the foyer and elevators and expect others to clean it up for them, while the same morons will quickly pick up after their dogs in Singapore and Europe and America or any country that will impose huge fines on them.

I really dont see any behavior difference based on how chi-chi it is. Every stairwell in every Govt office is stained red with paan spit. If the malls opened out their doors to every changu mangu guy , expect the same.

[Prasad]

People are also forgetting that road, air transport costs a lot more environmentally compared to rail.

[Arunkumar]

If anything many would prefer to get on a fast train.If I could reach Mumbai from Bangalore or Ahmadabad in 3-4 hours it would be faster than going to the airport ,security check etc etc and then the reverse process to get out of the airport. If I could reach Chennai in an hour from Bangalore and vice versa most people would actually prefer that to a plane.

Very true sir. Because of the piddly single line between Mumbai and bangalore , presently train takes 24 hrs. Next affordable way is bus which is 18 hrs. Next is plane which is 1.5 hrs. So there is a hugh gap between 1.5 hrs and 18 hrs which can be filled up by either HSR which might take 8 hrs for 1000 km @ 120 kmph average or say shinkansen at 200 kmph average in 5 hours.
I am eagerly looking forward to travel via a overnite HSR departing SBC at 10.00 and alighting CST at 6.00 after a good nite sleep in a 3AC coach.

[Suraj]

Please, all this talk about 'Indian behavior' are outside the scope of this thread. Those same Indians go to a foreign country and largely behave themselves perfectly well. Bad civic behavior is a direct result of essentially non-existent civic services and local administration.

If you want to pontificate on the evils of your fellow countrymen, please find yourself another forum, because the posts about it here will disappear.

[Santosh]

IMO, this is all talk. Nothing substantial will come out of it for the next 10 years. Just like nothing substantial came out of the dedicated freight corridor project in the last decade. 98K crores i.e. $16 billion can be better invested/absorbed by the Railways for providing better/modern railway stations, passenger facilities and trains. BTW, the first unit of Eastern DFC, some 60 odd Kms, will go live in Q1 2016. Imagine that