Work to introduce Semi-highspeed Trains on two routes to begin soon.

Indian Railways will soon start sub-projects aimed at introducing semi-high speed trains on the Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes, a senior ministry official said recently. The Railways has finalised the detailed project report (DPR) for an ambitious project aiming at running trains at 160 kmh on two busy corridors.

New Delhi-Howrah and New Delhi-Mumbai corridors would be upgraded to run trains at speed of 160 kmph as part of ‘Mission Raftaar’ launched by railways. “The two sub-projects under ‘Mission Raftaar’ are expected to be completed in three years with a total outlay of Rs 18,163 crore,” the official said. After the upgrade, trains on the routes will run at a speed of 160 km per hour.

The ‘Mission Raftaar’ project of the Indian Railways envisages to raise the average speed of both passenger and freight trains. The mission is being spearheaded by a cross disciplinary mobility directorate in the Railway Board. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a Detailed Project Report of the routes is being prepared.

The Delhi-Howrah section will be upgraded at a cost of Rs 6,974 crore, and the Delhi-Mumbai section at an estimated Rs 11,189 crore. The official said the work involved replacing locomotives-hauled trains with Main line Electric Multiple Units and Diesel Electric Multiple Units trains.

The work includes civil, electrical and signal and telecom for upgrading the track for high speed use. The work also involves an arduous task of fencing off the Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes. Fencing off the entire route is crucial for running trains at 160 kms an hour which can be later raised to 200 kms per hour, a senior Railway Ministry official said. According to Railways, it would be a paradigm shift for rail network development and besides upgradation, fencing is essential for preventing trespassing and cattle movement to ensure high speed and safety and it will find prominent mention in the budget papers.

While the rate of return for Delhi-Howrah route is 18 per cent, it is 14.7 per cent for Delhi-Mumbai. The Delhi-Mumbai section will cover Baroda-Ahmedabad route and Delhi-Howrah sector will also include Kanpur-Lucknow corridor in the project. The two major trunk routes have been taken up in the first phase and later on Howrah-Chennai and Mumbai-Chennai sectors will also be taken up.

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