High-speed bullet train corridors on Indian Railways network: In order to connect the four major metro cities of the country namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the government has identified routes for feasibility studies for high-speed rail connectivity. Recently, Rajen Gohain, the Minister of State of Railways, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha listed routes for connecting major metros for which the feasibility studies have been taken up. Here are the routes, which have been identified for the feasibility studies, linking the four major metro cities of the country with bullet trains:
(i) Delhi-Mumbai,
(ii) Delhi-Kolkata (via Lucknow),
(iii) Mumbai-Chennai,
(iv) Delhi-Nagpur segment of Delhi-Chennai,
(v) Mumbai-Nagpur segment of Mumbai-Kolkata
(vi) Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru.
The minister further said that out of these routes, feasibility studies for Delhi-Nagpur, Mumbai-Nagpur and Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru have been taken up under government-to-government cooperation with the governments of China, Spain and Germany respectively. Gohain also stated that so far, only one project i.e., the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) project has been sanctioned with the financial as well as technical assistance from Japan government.
The high-speed rail corridor between Mumbai in Maharashtra and Ahmedabad in Gujarat will be India’s first ever bullet train project. Currently, it takes almost 7 hours to complete a train journey between the two cities. However, once the high-speed rail project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is complete, the bullet train, with a speed of over 300 kmph will complete the journey in around 2 hours. For the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, NHSRCL 24 bullet train rakes of E-5 series running on Shinkansen technology will be used. Initially, there will be 10 coaches in the bullet train, with a seating capacity of 750 passengers. However, by 2033, the number of coaches will be increased to 15, with seating capacity of 1,250 passengers. Additionally, the high-speed train will also have many modern facilities such as vacuum toilets, baby toilet seats, multi- purpose room etc.