Vande Bharat trains are here. Is the Indian Railways infrastructure ready for faster trains?

Vande Bharat trains have many advanced features but no Indian train, including Vande Bharat, clocks an average 100 kmph speed in service.

On April 16, 1853, the inaugural train between Boribunder to Thane took one hour and fifteen minutes at 29.4 kmph speed to cover a distance of 33.8 km. Low average speed remains the bane of Indian Railways, with express trains averaging 50 kilometres per hour (kmph) and freight trains 25 kmph.

A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report tabled last April found despite a Rs 2.5 lakh crore investment and the launch of ‘Mission Raftaar’ to increase the average speed of trains by 25 kmph, the express trains were still running at 50.6 kmph on average in 2019-20 while the speed of freight trains dropped to 23.6 kmph. The CAG report was damning – just 2.1 percent of the 2,951 express trains operated at an average speed of more than 75 kmph while 9.4 percent moved at speeds below 40 kmph.

The average speed of a train depends on the quality of fixed and moving infrastructure such as tracks, bridges, signalling, traction, motive power and coaches. It is also affected by a compulsion to run slow-moving (freight and local) and fast-moving (express/super-fast) trains on the same track.

Budget Windfall

This year's budget brought a windfall for railways with the highest ever 2.6 lakh crore capital outlay. Speedier doubling of lines, conversion of near total route to broad-gauge, induction of high-powered locomotives and completion of electrification projects are set to increase the line capacity of Indian Railways. The best news is a faster rollout of Vande Bharat trains.

Vande Bharat trains, referred to as Train18 during its trials in 2018, is a semi-high-speed, self-propelled train conceptualised, designed and manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory in record 18 months. After successful trials in December 2018, the first service of Vande Bharat - between New Delhi and Varanasi - was flagged off by the prime minister on February 15, 2019.  The second service - between New Delhi and Katara - was flagged off on October 3, 2019. Train18 was renamed Vande Bharat before the launch of commercial service to celebrate its Make in India or Aatmanirbhar character.

There was a lull for two years after the 2019 inauguration. It was only on August 15, 2021, that the government revealed its ambitions for these trains. First, the prime minister announced that 75 Vande Bharat trains will connect different parts of the country by August 15, 2023. This was followed up with an announcement in the Union Budget 2022 that India will manufacture 400 Vande Bharat trains over the next three years.

Vande Bharat trains have many advanced features such as higher speed, enhanced safety, lower energy consumption, faster acceleration and deceleration, automatic doors, GPS-enabled audio passenger audio-visual information system, world-class seats and rotating executive class chairs and onboard Wi-Fi. It is the first Indian train designed for 180 kmph, a speed it surpassed in trials. But the travesty is no Indian train, including Vande Bharat trains, clocks an average 100 kmph speed in service for several reasons.

Infrastructure Bottlenecks

One, the tracks, old bridges, speed restrictions, sharp curves and other infringements cannot support speeds beyond 100-110 kmph. Over 90 percent of the route supports a maximum speed of 110 kmph and only small patches support 130 kmph. The Railway Board approved a speed policy in 2017 to upgrade quadrilateral and diagonal tracks to 160 kmph and other tracks to 130 kmph. Till the upgradation is completed, Vande Bharat trains cannot maintain a speed of 150-160 kmph.

Two, to achieve 160 kmph speed, Indian Railways will need to upgrade the capability of overhead equipment to handle higher currents which are drawn with higher acceleration. Investment in modern signalling will also be needed.

Three, line capacity will need to increase to handle 150-160 kmph speed. Increasing the average speed of freight trains to 50 kmph and express trains to 80 kmph are low-hanging fruits.

The ambitious plan to make 400 Vande Bharat trains in three years will transform the passenger experience and bring more money to Indian Railways as AC chair-car and executive cars are profitable segments. But it brings up two critical issues - the choice of Origination-Destination pair for the four hundred Vande Bharat trains and the speed at which depots to maintain these trains can be ramped up.

After the introduction of Shatabdi-type Vande Bharat trains, the need to have Rajdhani-type long-distance variant of such trains was felt. India is at the cusp of realising that ambition as the process to select manufacturers is almost complete. The challenge is to ramp up fixed infrastructure quickly to run trains at 160-200 kmph.

Akhileshwar Sahay is President (Advisory Services), BARSYL. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.