Indian Railways Thread

[vina]

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.

Do you realise what you are talking about is science fiction and make believe ?

Do you realise what you are talking about ?City center to City Center via HSR ? That is an INCREDIBLY difficult proposition and the costs will simply multiply many fold. Imagine building a brand new HSR station somewhere in Bangalore and building dedicated HSR lines in an out of Bangalore and Chennai and having protected and fenced and grade separated permanent ways ( tracks in lay man terms). I cannot imagine even being able that in 30 years from now at a cost that makes sense.

The only way from City center of Bangalore to City Center of Chennai is by helicopter (even the fastest ones in the world like the Lynx will find it difficult, yeah, you need the V22 Osprey). There is nothing else with current technology that can do it (roughly 360Km) in an hour.

[chetak]

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.

you are building a 1000 rupee road for a flashy car and if that flashy car does not run you are not averse to running much less flashy cars on that same 1000 rupee road. The less flashy cars could easily run very comfortably on 50 rupee roads too.

so why not simply build twenty 50 rupee roads instead?? and run multiple times 50 cars on each of those 20 roads. So what if they ran a bit slower, they would benefit a heck of a lot more folks that the few flashy cars would, no??

The japanese are strongly recommending standard tracks for the HSR. This is surely to minimize their own production/design risks as also their IRIS certification risks and time. Standard tracks are our meter gauge tracks onlee and so if IR gets it wrong and the japanese have their way, the HSR tracks are/will be completely unusable by the IR which has standardized fully on broad gauge.

If we insist on standardizing the HSR to our broad gauge tracks, then the project costs and equipment costs will rise very considerably.

[Suraj]

"nothing substantial came out of the dedicated freight corridor project in the last decade"

The first stretch of the DFCC is coming into operation *this* financial year. Railway and road projects aren't put into service km by km. They build the whole thing, electrify the whole thing, and then it goes into service. Saying 'nothing has come into service yet' is like jumping off a tall building and repeatedly saying nothing has happened to you yet, on the way down.

[SSundar]

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

Dailymail seems to have a sinister way of tagging its articles. When I tried to post this link on FB, the title only says the "good" news headline, not the full rant headline you see on the article.

It would be a VERY funny article to share on FB if only the title cooperated .

[chetak]

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 ?

land costs, for one

[vina]

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

Well that is impossible . The only reason you have dedicated HSR tracks is you want to separate high speed and slower passenger and freight traffic. What you are suggesting is conceptually letting bullock carts share an autobahn with cars running at 200kmph .

Technically it is impossible as well. The HSR tracks dont have the visual red/yellow/green signalling you have for conventional trains. At those speeds those visual signals are not visible. They have in cab signalling via pick up from the tracks (ATC/ATS signalling ) like in many Metro cabs.

Also, a HSR train is a lightweight optimised for speed design and the tracks are optimised for that. Running heavy freight trains on the same track will simpy ruin them.

What you are suggesting is like the Brainiacs of the India railways who insisted (against sane advice) that the Metro rail of the 1st phase of Delhi Metro be Broad Gauge (as is Kolkata metro) because they imagined conventional rakes and also metro rakes running on those and other normal tracks. That is simply impossible and apart from that one 1st line, all other DMRC lines are standard gauge and no one dreams of running metro trains on normal tracks and normal rakes on metro tracks any more (just like in any other part of the world).

[Suraj]

you are building a 1000 rupee road for a flashy car and if that flashy car does not run you are not averse to running much less flashy cars on that same 1000 rupee road. The less flashy cars could easily run very comfortably on 50 rupee roads too.

so why not simply build twenty 50 rupee roads instead?? and run multiple times 50 cars on each of those 20 roads. So what if they ran a bit slower, they would benefit a heck of a lot more folks that the few flashy cars would, no??

You realize that's exactly what IR are already doing ? Did you not see the last railway budget ? Actually, the railway budget spending is something you can actually compare to education and health in that graph you posted. The railways are spending $140 billion upto 2019 on upgrading their existing network. More than 10x what the Japanese are separately investing in this project. That's $140 billion that could go into health and education no ?

If we insist on standardizing the HSR to our broad gauge tracks, then the project costs and equipment costs will rise very considerably.

A broad gauge HSR isn't difficult to accomplish. The Sapsan already runs on Russian gauge that is 10cm wider than standard gauge, and the Sapsan trainsets are standard Siemens Velaro. The Spanish run the AVE on standard gauge because of interconnectivity with rest of EU, and the rest of their semi-high speed network on Iberian gauge, which is a few mm narrower than our broad gauge.

What you can't do is run freight and HSR services on the same track. They have completely different mission profiles.

[Suraj]

land costs, for one

There's nothing that says GoI is going to spend out of its own revenues to buy land off the public and hand it over to the Japanese free of charge.

In fact there's nothing that indicates GoI is on the hook for the cost of this project . It has been interpreted out of the existence of an SPV, which on the other hand is a standard instrument used to separate the liabilities of an entity from the government's liability . That's why it's called a special purpose vehicle as opposed to a department of the government, which would actually be directly paid for by the government.

[SSundar]

you are building a 1000 rupee road for a flashy car and if that flashy car does not run you are not averse to running much less flashy cars on that same 1000 rupee road. The less flashy cars could easily run very comfortably on 50 rupee roads too.

so why not simply build twenty 50 rupee roads instead?? and run multiple times 50 cars on each of those 20 roads. So what if they ran a bit slower, they would benefit a heck of a lot more folks that the few flashy cars would, no??

Not a very apt analogy, saar, if the flashy car and less-flashy cars run at the same speed and carry the same number of people.

If the flashy car could potentially improve your nation's economy by 1-2% that you know of and possibly by a bigger number that you cannot quite imagine, it would be worth the risk of trying the 1000 rupee road as an experiment. The 50 rupee road shuts the door on that dream/experiment forever.

[chetak]

"nothing substantial came out of the dedicated freight corridor project in the last decade"

The first stretch of the DFCC is coming into operation *this* financial year. Railway and road projects aren't put into service km by km. They build the whole thing, electrify the whole thing, and then it goes into service. Saying 'nothing has come into service yet' is like jumping off a tall building and repeatedly saying nothing has happened to you yet, on the way down.

That was because of the scamgress. they needed mucho extra money to burn on populism to make that paragon of intelligence, pappu, the PM.

I see where you are coming from and you have a very valid point.

All one is suggesting is to build the proper foundation before you make the penthouse.

If Modi decides on the HSR and goes ahead with it after the feasibility report, one cannot really stop him. But at the current stage of growth, this effort can be diverted into more productive and in your face infrastructure projects that will immediately benefit the aam aadmi and showcase the BJP.

Short gestation projects are more paying at the hustings than some grandiose long gestation project like the HSR which will soon get spun as a failure of Modi and the BJP during the 2019 elections.

What has not been achieved because of the impasse in the RS has to be taken to it's logical conclusion in the next term onlee. Modi needs the next term for that, come what may.

Hardly any point in filling up the tijori, like it was done the last time by ABV/BJP and then gift it to the scamgress to burn up in populist measures for pappu's coronation as PM.

This is a once in a lifetime god sent opportunity for the bakths to do good and if needlessly squandered away, it may never come again.

[chetak]

you are building a 1000 rupee road for a flashy car and if that flashy car does not run you are not averse to running much less flashy cars on that same 1000 rupee road. The less flashy cars could easily run very comfortably on 50 rupee roads too.

so why not simply build twenty 50 rupee roads instead?? and run multiple times 50 cars on each of those 20 roads. So what if they ran a bit slower, they would benefit a heck of a lot more folks that the few flashy cars would, no??

Not a very apt analogy, saar, if the flashy car and less-flashy cars run at the same speed and carry the same number of people.

If the flashy car could potentially improve your nation's economy by 1-2% that you know of and possibly by a bigger number that you cannot quite imagine, it would be worth the risk of trying the 1000 rupee road as an experiment. The 50 rupee road shuts the door on that dream/experiment forever.

it is only suggested that the 1000 rupee road come a little later down the line.

[Suraj]

chetak, I already called you out once for making this thread about politics. You're on unofficial warning #2. Your call here. You're getting plenty of latitude here, despite derailing this thread with politics. More latitude than 1676mm in fact. That's all the railway puns from me for now...

[SSundar]

Well that is impossible . The only reason you have dedicated HSR tracks is you want to separate high speed and slower passenger and freight traffic. What you are suggesting is conceptually letting bullock carts share an autobahn with cars running at 200kmph .

I am not suggesting that these be done concurrently. IFF HSR fails, is the infrastructure reusable for non- or semi-HSR purposes so we can recover a major part of the investment?

From the numbers bade shared, it appears that the HSR-specific investment is under 10% of the total cost, making 90% reusable in case of total failure of the project.

[chetak]

land costs, for one

There's nothing that says GoI is going to spend out of its own revenues to buy land off the public and hand it over to the Japanese free of charge.

In fact there's nothing that indicates GoI is on the hook for the cost of this project . It has been interpreted out of the existence of an SPV, which on the other hand is a standard instrument used to separate the liabilities of an entity from the government's liability . That's why it's called a special purpose vehicle as opposed to a department of the government, which would actually be directly paid for by the government.

sar, please. this is an INDIAN project with japanese funding. nothing need be handed over to anyone except the HSRC.

[chetak]

chetak, I already called you out once for making this thread about politics. You're on unofficial warning #2. Your call here. You're getting plenty of latitude here, despite derailing this thread with politics. More latitude than 1676mm in fact. That's all the railway puns from me for now...

understood. last from me on this topic. over and out.

[member_28108]

Actually it is possible see the amount of land that the railways have across tracks (which is where they plan to keep the dedicated corridors) and yes that is what they are planning in Mumbai Ahmedabad route. Even if we say that they cannot zoom in like the TGV bulk distance coverage itself would reduce the time. Maybe not 1 hour to Chennai but 11/2 or even 2 hours is better than the turn around for a plane ride. If the Shatabdi was to travel on a dedicated corridors and not stop its 5 hour journey itself would be reduced to 2.5 hours if it runs at its designed speed of 140 Kms/hour. Problem is every minister wants to have a stop in his backyard and I remember a Congress railway minister got the Rajdhani speed lowered so that the rain passing through his city would be the "fastest' In Mumbai the Rajdhani get the right of way through the suburban rail system having a dedicated high speed line is not an impossibility. Just see the vacant land that the railways actually owns in any city. I can see it right here in the central business area of Bangalore.

[Amber G.]

I know we are getting technology from Japan..
Apology after Japanese train departs 20 seconds early

Management on the Tsukuba Express line between Tokyo and the city of Tsukuba say they "sincerely apologise for the inconvenience" caused.
In a statement, the company said the train had been scheduled to leave at 9:44:40 local time but left at 9:44:20.

[disha]

Is this thread truncated? I see post from 14 Dec 2015 and next post 16 Nov 2017 !