Runaway Train
High-speed trains could be the Indian Railways’ answer to low-cost airlines
by K.P. Narayana Kumar | Nov 5, 2009
I t’s 7 a.m. on a Monday morning and you are in Amritsar. You’ve to get to Delhi for an important business meeting at 10 a.m. But, there are no flight tickets available and the drive will take you at least eight hours. What do you do? You walk into the Amritsar railway station and buy an early morning high-speed train ticket to Delhi. You board the train at 7:30 a.m., read your financial daily, eat breakfast and viola! You are in Delhi at 9 a.m. A pipedream? Not if the Indian Railways has its way. The railways have commissioned feasibility studies for running high-speed trains between Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar and Mumbai-Pune-Ahmedabad. The railway ministry has already received an interim report from the appointed survey agency for the Mumbai line, while the contract for the Delhi train is expected to be handed out soon. The carrying capacity of each high-speed train is expected to be around 600 with at least five trips per day on both lines. The high-speed trains will move at 350 kmph, the same speed at which China Railway’s trains hurtle between the cities of Beijing and Tianjin. This could change the way people live and businesses function. Mumbai-Pune will be done in a little over half an hour, compared to over three hours now. People living in Delhi and Amritsar will be covered in one and a half hours. The IT sector in Mohali, Gurgaon and Noida will get a boost. However, this connectivity will come at a price. Preliminary estimates suggest that the cost of constructing a high-speed railway line and acquiring trains to run on them would be in the range of Rs. 70 crore to Rs. 100 crore per km, translating to at least Rs. 37,000 crore for a Mumbai-Ahmedabad line. To recover the high cost, tickets would have to be priced at roughly Rs. 5 per km — so, a Delhi-Amritsar one-way trip would cost about Rs. 2,000. The Railways are targeting budget and aspiring airline travellers, high value rail passengers and car owners. A preliminary study commissioned by the Railway Board on the market for premium class rail travel showed that the Delhi-Sonepat route, which is on the way to Chandigarh, accounts for close to 20,000 air-conditioned cars everyday. “Many of these car owners would prefer to travel by rail if it can take them to their destination within a third of the journey time,” says a railways official. The most promising segment comprises passengers who travel in the air-conditioned coaches of the Indian Railways. There are 77 million such passengers and while they make up only 1 percent of the total passenger traffic, they generate over Rs. 5,000 crore a year.
|
|||||||||
Find this article in Forbes India Magazine of 06 November, 2009
You might also want to read...
Recent Comments
alok sharma :
November 23, 2009
Before such trains one should complete many small routes; Guna Etawah route started 20 years back and is still incomplete. Merta-Ajmer via pushkar 80 km new line will serve 50 lac passengers. There may be 100 such small routes which can do wonders. All single lines should be first converted in double line before extravagant routes. All routes should be electrified before railway expressways. Gauge conversion of Jabalpur-Gondia narrow gauge and Indore-Akola meter gauge can considerably reduce north south distance, first complete project unigauge. After all this triple the rolling stock and then take any impractical project. Many lines are ending in the mid part of country should be connected to another near by end point or railway line. To part finance these small but common people-friendly project issue bonds usable as future railway service. Issue bonds of 2 lac crore.
November 23, 2009
Before such trains one should complete many small routes; Guna Etawah route started 20 years back and is still incomplete. Merta-Ajmer via pushkar 80 km new line will serve 50 lac passengers. There may be 100 such small routes which can do wonders. All single lines should be first converted in double line before extravagant routes. All routes should be electrified before railway expressways. Gauge conversion of Jabalpur-Gondia narrow gauge and Indore-Akola meter gauge can considerably reduce north south distance, first complete project unigauge. After all this triple the rolling stock and then take any impractical project. Many lines are ending in the mid part of country should be connected to another near by end point or railway line. To part finance these small but common people-friendly project issue bonds usable as future railway service. Issue bonds of 2 lac crore.
anil :
November 6, 2009
Yes. railways must have a permanent program for weekend specials holiday specials,in festivals along with new timetable. TheSe specials should be fixed for the year.
November 6, 2009
Yes. railways must have a permanent program for weekend specials holiday specials,in festivals along with new timetable. TheSe specials should be fixed for the year.
anil :
November 6, 2009
Mumbai pune hyderabad seems to best corridor. Every corridor will require acquisition of land. Mumbai -pune the corridor can start from ballard-pier across the sea link get to pune and from there to hyderabad. it can be constructed fastest. moreover like NewYork in USA Mumbai is the main city of india and all amenitites should start first at mumbai and then to Delhi.
November 6, 2009
Mumbai pune hyderabad seems to best corridor. Every corridor will require acquisition of land. Mumbai -pune the corridor can start from ballard-pier across the sea link get to pune and from there to hyderabad. it can be constructed fastest. moreover like NewYork in USA Mumbai is the main city of india and all amenitites should start first at mumbai and then to Delhi.
More from UpFront
Corporate Account
Most Popular
Read
Commented
Emailed
- Why Aamir Khan is a Marketing Genius
- Treasure Hunt
- Osian's Art Fund: The Broken Paddle
- Don’t Cry For Me Argentum
- A CTO Needs to Combine Tech Expertise with Bu...
- Thought Leader Interview: Philip Kotler
- Rebooting Telecom
- How to Part with your Own Business
- Stem Cell Research: Advantage India
For Most Read
Inside business.in.com
News | UpFront | Corporate Account | First Principles | Global Game | Enterprise | Life | Multimedia | Magazine
| Conversation
| Web Exclusive
| The Daily Sabbatical
© Copyright 2009, Business.in.com | Contact Us | Advertise with Us | Feedback | Subscribe | | Twitter 
| Facebook 
| Twitter | Facebook