Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

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tandav
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by tandav »

I was hinting at privatization of signals and freight hauling. I am of the opinion that using rail for people movement is a very poor utilization of rail assets. It's better to use rail for cargo. Let operators run RO-RO assets and cargo terminals
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Kashi »

tandav wrote:I am of the opinion that using rail for people movement is a very poor utilization of rail assets.
Why do you think so? In my opinion, rail is one of the best means of mass transit both for people and materials. Especially in a country like India, where a substantial percentage may not necessarily have the means to afford a private vehicle or travel by air.

This is not to say that the present state of IR passenger traffic is satisfactory, there is a pressing need for improvement and innovation, but it has its niche, just like Road and Air traffic.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by arshyam »

Actually, given our population and dependence on imported fossil fuels, both personalized road and air travel are not the ways to go. Rail should be the default for most journeys, and air travel only for long hauls. Road travel (think intercity buses, BRTS) should only fill short distances where rail is not feasible, or absorb seasonal excess demand. Personal road transport should be miniscule percentage of all trips. Just saying rail is inefficient onlee doesn't make sense. @tandav, please share your reasons and data, if any, for your assertion.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by arshyam »

Also, what is "privatization of signals"?
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Supratik »

India has one of the largest rail networks already built and 20 years back was more efficient than roads and rudimentary air travel. The problem is that politicians had turned it into some kind of socialist transportation system. We should just build more infra, upgrade existing infra and let private operators as much of it as possible just like we run buses, planes and taxis. It will automatically bring in a modern, efficient rail transportation system. There will still be many things the govt will need to do e.g. connectivity to remote areas which may not be economically viable.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by A Nandy »

https://trak.in/tags/business/2019/04/2 ... ting-2020/
Railway Officials have stated that very soon, Vande Bharat Express will have sleeper coaches, which will eventually replace All Rajdhani Express trains in India.

An official said, “The design work for a Rajdhani Express-style Train 18 is in process. We hope to complete it by year-end and get it finalized by the Railway Board,”

While Shatabdi has chair cars, Rajdhani Express is a sleeper version, with berths to sleep.

The new sleeper coaches of Vande Bharat Express, which will eventually replace Rajdhani Express are being manufactured in India, at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai.
Whatever happened to the second rake of T18?
I am of the opinion that using rail for people movement is a very poor utilization of rail assets. It's better to use rail for cargo.
:eek:
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by ritesh »

Future of rail travel is T18 and the upcoming T20.

All mail express and super fast premium trains should be converted into using this technology.

Along with this all major trunk routes should be converted into at least 200 kmph capable infra to derive optimum benefit of these new age rakes.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Supratik »

Yes
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by tandav »

If you look at the Indian rail budget you will note that railways loses money on every passenger that it carries... all railways around the world lose money... however if you move the cargo on the railways its more profitable and this takes a very large number of trucks off the road which increases road transportation viability for passengers using modes such as Buses and Cars.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by arshyam »

What is the unit cost of road transport? Not just fuel cost, but starting from land, road infra, #vehicles, pollution, gridlock (we in BLR see this already), etc.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Kashi »

tandav wrote:If you look at the Indian rail budget you will note that railways loses money on every passenger that it carries...
Not quite. AC III is highly profitable. Sleeper 3 tier is subsided, so they lose money there.

The revenue shortfall in passenger segment is not because of any inherent unsustanibility in railways carrying passenger traffic, but due to socio-political context that IR operates in, therefore viewing present IR operations in a purely economic context is myopic.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by tandav »

arshyam wrote:What is the unit cost of road transport? Not just fuel cost, but starting from land, road infra, #vehicles, pollution, gridlock (we in BLR see this already), etc.
Agreed... infact India has to make the leap and create automobile free cities... only I am not able to wrap my head around how to manage goods flow within the city and heavy machinery flow without adequate roads. In that sense absolutely Rail is cheaper than road... however Rail does not permit point to point connectivity.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Prasad »

Well you need very good rail for inter-city and then very good rail+bus system for intra-city and a seamless transition between rail, air and intra-city public transport to ensure everybody uses it.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Sridhar K »

Turf battle derails future of Train 18
While the first train set, christened the Vande Bharat Express and flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been running successfully for over 16 hours a day between New Delhi and Varanasi since February 2019, a spat over protocol among officers of the Mechanical and Electrical departments in the Railways, has hit production of the semi high-speed train
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by jaysimha »

Sridhar K wrote:
While the first train set, christened the Vande Bharat Express and flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been running successfully for over 16 hours a day between New Delhi and Varanasi since February 2019, a spat over protocol among officers of the Mechanical and Electrical departments in the Railways, has hit production of the semi high-speed train
This could be a simple thing where a new project/product need some further fine tuning in the SOP,,
while typical DDM reports news using terms like "derail"" Blah blah blah ..
many times feel these ddm report to show..
hi look.. i can pay in wiss franks and get your inside info.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Jaeger »

This is a deeply depressing and dangerous development. Please read Mr. Mani's blog and you will understand how hard certain vested interests have tried to kill this project. With his retirement, the hyaenas have begun to tear at the threat to their gravy trains. (No pun intended).
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Sridhar K »

Yes, the whole derail thing is a bit overblown but Mr Manis blog also subtly indicated the lack of progress on Train 20 due to vested interest. I guess they are all waiting for 23rd May to see which direction the wind is blowing
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by chetak »

Sridhar K wrote:Yes, the whole derail thing is a bit overblown but Mr Manis blog also subtly indicated the lack of progress on Train 20 due to vested interest. I guess they are all waiting for 23rd May to see which direction the wind is blowing
quite normal for any govt organization.

It's the Indian crab syndrome along with a subtle but well known variation of our all time favorite: the jaichand redux.

many will be vying to grab some credit using whatever influence they have, political or otherwise.

It is however baffling that mani was not rehired to run the same unit as a consultant nor given a three year extension so that any systemic and manufacturing kinks could be ironed out and put to bed.

With farsighted people like prabhu/goel at the helm, it should have been tackled on a war footing but I guess all this important stuff got overlooked because of elections allowing envious and disgruntled senior employees to wag their tails.

This has been a very major and a truly outstanding effort for the "make in India" push by Modi and its progenitor surely deserved to be treated better.

Apart from this, there are goras who fear a huge loss of business, if India takes off in the trainset business and they are forcefully muscling in, behind the scenes, to scuttle this inspired project.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

CRS inspection on 13th May between Alnawar and Devarayi 21 km between Dharwad and Londa Jn. Once commissioned essentially Guntakal to Tinaighat is completely doubled barring one or two block sections (around Gadag) that are almost finished. This leaves Tinaighat-Castle Rock--Dudhsagar Falls-Madgaon(Goa) still to be doubled. No electrification work yet between Hubbali and Goa.

Electrification on this route: wiring is taking place between Toranagallu-Hospet, Guntakal-Ballari is of course doubled and also electrified. Pole fixing is going on between Hospet-Gadag-Hubbali. So by the end of the year Guntakal-Hospet will be FEDL and DL between Hospet and Tinaighat.

Mangalore-Bangalore electrification has also been announced with a cost workup.

Jaipur-Delhi should see electrification in about 3 months and also doubling completed later this year. About 40km left for doubling, between Dhigwara and Bandikui. All earthworks and bridges complete, shortage of rails hampering finishing.

This is a good section Delhi-Jaipur to launch Train 18 with tourist traffic.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Singha »

in 2005 the china economy was around 2.5T - about we are now some 14 years later.

thing which beats me is between 2000-2010 they are estimated to have spent $100b on their HSR network, how did the govt raise that much funds ?

here we are at the same 2.5T and need a japan soft loan to build one HSR

today some 10 mighty longsword fuxing CRH trainsets travel each way daily between shanghai and peking alone, covering 1300km in 5 hrs max. and there are many other HSR lines.

Image
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by hanumadu »

^^They also had Huawei, ZTE and were vendor financing heavily to push their products. Also 2.5 trillion 15 years ago is more like 5 trillion now.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Supratik »

They have a huge state sector which the govt can tap for funds and many are flush with cash specially from export surplus. Their state sectors are made to run on a whip. If you fail you will be send to a re-education camp. OTOH, in India PSUs are run like baap ka maal.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Suraj »

Have you looked at China Rail Corps’ debt load ? It’s close to $1 TRILLION . With a T . CRC debt is approx CNY 5.5 trillion and 6.8 CNY is $1.

China has a very mature debt financing system . You don’t need to depend solely on tax revenues to build stuff like this . You pretty much just print money and issue bonds to be serviced out of operational revenues .
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

A video of the Make in India initiative WAGC-3 where older diesel ALCo's were converted to electrics and given this new classification number. In fact 10001 the very first in this series is in the video. With this configuration, short hood forward in all direction of movement.
Here seen pulling a container freight through Khanna, Punjab(between Sirhind and Ludhiana, EDFC will pass through Khanna ). Shows good acceleration. I was waiting for my train back from Bonn to Frankfurt a few weeks ago and saw a DB freight, with containers, similar load, though smaller number of cars on the DB freight and the acceleration is similar. Seems this product has a a lot of juice for freight hauling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wq6FV3 ... e=youtu.be
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by hanumadu »

How come we can convert diesel locos to electric but not make our own electric locomotives?
What are we going to do with the 1000 diesel locomotives that GE is building for us in Bihar?
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Singha »

electric cargo locos seem to have moved from a one humongous chassis to army of ants approach with multiple engines linked together.
permits sizing the number to the load I think.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Suraj »

hanumadu wrote:How come we can convert diesel locos to electric but not make our own electric locomotives?
What are we going to do with the 1000 diesel locomotives that GE is building for us in Bihar?
Well, to be fair we skipped right over to a semi-HSR grade Train 18 EMU .
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by hanumadu »

Suraj wrote:
hanumadu wrote:How come we can convert diesel locos to electric but not make our own electric locomotives?
What are we going to do with the 1000 diesel locomotives that GE is building for us in Bihar?
Well, to be fair we skipped right over to a semi-HSR grade Train 18 EMU .
We will still need them for freight trains.
There is still time before we move all our passenger trains to train sets. So we will still continue to buy electric locomotives.
If we can make the power component of the train sets, why can't we make light weight aluminum bodies for them. One would think it is the easier part.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Suraj »

I just remembered that the WAP-1 and WAP-4 are Indian designed electric locos, though with imported power electricals (Hitachi traction motors in the latter, as far as I recall).

The Train-20 program attempts to replace the steel in the Train-18 coachwork with aluminium, among other things.

What does a clean sheet local electric locomotive design get us that something like WAG-12 (an Alstom Prima II derivative) doesn't get us ?

I think IR demonstrated a lot more technological capability during the Train-18 design effort than anything they could demonstrate by building an electric loco themselves.

They could theoretically develop an offshoot of Train-20 as a 250-300km/h experimental trainset , since they're soon going to see and deal with the Shinkansen E5/E6 trainsets up close for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed line.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by hanumadu »

We will continue to be producing electric locomotives well into the future. By developing our own - if we have the capability - we will be saving money on R&D at least in the long run, improve our technological base and also saving money on producing them. Looks like we paid Alstom money to develop the WAG-12. Another case of our money being used to advance some other's technology.

If we can develop WAG 9, why not WAG 12?. We did not develop WAG 9
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by arvin »

>>What does a clean sheet local electric locomotive design get us that something like WAG-12 (an Alstom Prima II derivative) doesn't get us ?

We managed to distribute the traction across the train unlike WAG-12 which pulls the train. Since each bogie is self propelled with its set of 250 KW motors we may have gained expertise in designing distributed power delivery across the train. TOT for a design would have cost us a fortune. Since the design is Indian we are free to upscale or downscale as per requirement. In contrast WAG-12 contains far bigger motors and they may require more complex power delivery and cooling requirements.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

With the professed goal of the current dispensation to achieve full electric traction on IR, and hopefully the goal for the next dispensation which increasingly looks like Modi 2.0 again, the 1000 diesels made by GE look like white elephants. Piyush Goyal justified the 1000 as needed for strategic railways along the borders. That may be true but the maintenance demands on diesels are more. For example consider the new line that was sanctioned between Bilaspur(HP) and Leh. To run diesels along it would need special additives for the fuel, additives to any cooling liquids and plus the oxygen depletion at altitude would mean sub-optimal performance. People traveling over the Rohtang pass in a car know.
Electrics would only need special additives for lubricants and any oil used in transformers for cooling. Thus electric would be optimal even along border lines. There will be occasions when landslides, snowstorms etc might bring down cables and OHE eqpt. and yes then diesels can be used as a stopgap till the OHE is restored. But certainly diesels in such large numbers is not warranted. A smaller fleet is certainly needed for all sorts of emergency work as for example if OHE gets downed during a cyclone. It will take time for full electrification, the goals that have been set by the Railway Board are extremely ambitious for this fiscal for example, and the implementing organizations have been simply unable to match the goals and 60-65% of projects spill into the next fiscal. My take is that RVNL and other implementing organizations slacked off on the off chance that Modi might not return and it will be back to the old scheme so many goals in many railway zones were not met by significant margins, missed by 85% in Central Railway for example. Now that it seems Modi 2.0 will happen, the very same organizations will pick up the slack and work as they know the consequences. But even then over 50% implementation is unheard of even in the best of times.

Note the US does operate diesels exclusively through Montana, over the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas and over the Raton pass between Colorado and New Mexico the latter for both freight via the AT&SF(Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe) and the Amtrak service Southwest Chief between Chicago and LA which is a splendid route even though not as magnificent as it was(rolling stock wise, the scenery is simply fantastic-- a few of the period hotels built by Harvey, the Harvey hotels along the line in the 1800's still existed in 1982 in ok condition, but now even that is gone. Places like Gallup, NM and Rincon NM and even Santa Fe and Albuquerque NM) in 1982 when I first went on it. Yet for a country like India with its dependence on foreign oil, the Switzerland route of electrifying is far better and the more attractive model.
Last edited by vsunder on 13 May 2019 20:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by arvin »

Piyush goyal did try to convince GE to scrap the diesel project and manufacture something else. But they did not budge. Goyal was putting a brave face when he justified the strategic thing but within him he knew, this wasnt fitting in larger scheme of things.
I think CAG also had a lense on the project and quoted a figure of 17000 cr as total cost including land acq.
Blame must squarely fall on babus in rail bhavan and heads must roll for this collosal waste of money.
It looks funny , The contract was signed with suresh prabhu as rail mantri in 2015 and within 2 years after goyal takes over he questions the need for the diesels. Clearly babus manning the files did not have the vision to advise prabhu against it.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

When I meant oil used in transformers, do not forget there is track side equipment in the form of TSS's (Traction sub stations) and these need transformers which need to be maintained and cooled even at altitude, so not only the loco but the fixed assets have to be thought about. Stores for example at Leh of fuel and lubricants have to be maintained too.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by durairaaj »

arvin wrote:... Clearly babus manning the files did not have the vision to advise prabhu against it.
It is a symptom of one upmanship between Mechanical arm and Electrical arm of Railways.
In fact the delay in train 20 and curtailing the speed of train 18 manufacturing is also linked to that.
In one of his blog Mr. Mani mentioned that by skipping certain mandatory permission from electrical arm has significantly advanced the timeline. But, recent news articles suggest that the skipping of the step is considered as a violation of code and ICF is being investigated.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by prahaar »

Suraj wrote:I just remembered that the WAP-1 and WAP-4 are Indian designed electric locos, though with imported power electricals (Hitachi traction motors in the latter, as far as I recall).
WAG9-HH by CLW is a step in the right direction. Upgrading a 6000hp freight locomotive to 9000hp. The standard WAG9 costs 10 crores. WAG12 project cost is 19000 crores for 800, of course this includes green field setup. So in-house upgrade with an indigenous electric motor is an accomplishment, hopefully this turns out well in the trials.

https://www.thestatesman.com/bengal/chi ... 42443.html

Any idea about WDG5 trials?
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Prem »

Prem
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Prem »

https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/i ... 50028.html
India Ships First Batch Of 'Made In India' Metro Coaches To Australia
The metro coaches, built for the Australian government, was the first of its kind India has ever exported. The coaches, which measure 75 feet in length and weigh 46 tonnes each, were loaded in house by the Mumbai Port Trust. Over the next two-and-a-half years, a total of 450 'Made in India' metro coaches will be exported to Australia.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by chetak »

arvin wrote:Piyush goyal did try to convince GE to scrap the diesel project and manufacture something else. But they did not budge. Goyal was putting a brave face when he justified the strategic thing but within him he knew, this wasnt fitting in larger scheme of things.
I think CAG also had a lense on the project and quoted a figure of 17000 cr as total cost including land acq.
Blame must squarely fall on babus in rail bhavan and heads must roll for this collosal waste of money.
It looks funny , The contract was signed with suresh prabhu as rail mantri in 2015 and within 2 years after goyal takes over he questions the need for the diesels. Clearly babus manning the files did not have the vision to advise prabhu against it.
i think that going to full electrification in the short to medium term is something of a mission impossible sort of exercise. It is nice to have such an ambitious goal but we lack the resources to do this given the numerous other sectors that are competing hard for a slice of the limited financial pie and the other national goals that may take precedence.

so we will bash on with a mixture of electric and diesel and gradually replace the diesels as and when they warrant it and that's not such a bad thing at all.

what happens if the next govt has a different take on things. International players have very deep pockets and will sway policy to suit themselves and look to offload older products with some lipstick and new facepaint

GE is obviously playing the long game and their bird in hand is worth very good money.

everyone abroad, including many in India, especially the middleman types from lootyens dilli have suddenly discovered the very obvious advantages of having a weak govt at the center.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Singha »

imo you can never have enough railway engines , artillery and tanks.
these 1000 puppies will pay for themselves as trusty mules over decades.
they can catch 10,000t trains by scruff of neck and haul them over the deccan plateau.

its the same thing why underpowered 150hp trucks are indian highways? on any slope they slow to 20kmph and struggle. a 400hp truck will glide up such slopes and may even consume less fuel.
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