Thread by @Ananth_IRAS

All those cynics and so-called intellectuals mocking the speed of #VandeBharat and commenting on how the trains in the West and China have moved far ahead in speeds should know why we lagged behind. They should know the history of high-speed railways in India. A small thread!

As I have said earlier, when we ran the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express above 100 kmph in 1969, we were then the second country in Asia to run trains in excess of 100 kmph and China hadn't achieved this feat. But what happened after that? That's a tale of missed opportunities.

A lot of planning went into running the Rajdhani Express at a speed in excess of 100 kmph. An inter-departmental team of officers was formed to study the track and conduct oscillation trials on the rolling stock. I had the privilege of talking to one of the officers of that team.

The railways of the entire developing world and China were in awe of this development. But then the politics of the country took a leftward turn and high-speed railway was found to be inconsistent with the establishment of a socialist pattern of society and 'Garibi Hatao'!

The research into high-speed railways in India was abandoned and funding for this initiative was stopped in the early 1970s. Unsurprisingly, there was a demand for the members of the team from other developing countries to help them build high-speed lines and rolling stock.

The next development was in 1988 when the WAP-1 locomotive was certified to run at 160 kmph in trial run but was certified for 140 kmph for commercial operations. Thus the Bhopal Shatabdi clocked 140 kmph between Jhansi and New Delhi in 1989. The next development was in 1995!

In 1995, the first batch of three-phase locomotives manufactured by ABB arrived in India. The WAP-5 locomotives were certified to run at 160 kmph, with a capacity enhancement to move at 200 kmph. But these trains only ran between Bhopal and New Delhi, NDLS-HWH and NDLS-CST.

There was very little effort to make the other sections of the track fit for higher speeds. Many of them were only fit for 90 kmph & some of them for 110 kmph. Besides, the emphasis was only on the introduction of new trains without a matching investment in capacity enhancement.

Though the proposal for running high-speed trains was first mooted by Madhavrao Scindia in mid-1980s but the cost was prohibitive for the times. Again in the mid-1990s, a committee studied the proposal and found the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector viable for a high-speed railway line.

Though the High-Speed Rail Corporation of India Ltd (HSRC) was formed in July 2013 by @RailVikas, it acquired a concrete shape only in 2016, and work on the first bullet train project started only in 2017. The entire project is now scheduled for full completion by 2028.

Meanwhile, there was very little emphasis to upgrade the track to speeds of 130 kmph or 160 kmph. That has acquired new importance now and now, every division has been asked to plan for upgrading all sections to 130 kmph and one section to 160 kmph during the year 2023-24.

Even if we are able to upgrade half of the planned sections to 130 kmph, it will have a substantial impact on the average speed of the entire network. This will increase the overall running of trains and ensure faster movement of passengers. We are all in for better days now.