India Bullet Train - Bad Idea?

[vrbarreto]

As per this..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35059250

India's government has approved a $14.7bn (£9.7bn) deal for Japan to build the country's first high-speed train line, according to reports.
A government minister and official at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office told the Reuters news agency that cabinet had cleared the bid.
An announcement was expected to be made over the weekend during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India.
China is also bidding to build high-speed bullet train lines in India.
The highly-anticipated multi-billion dollar deal is being touted as one of the biggest foreign investments in India's ageing infrastructure.
"We expect to make an announcement during the visit," the official told Reuters, adding that issues had been sorted out ahead of Prime Minister's Abe visit, which begins on Friday.
The bullet train line is expected to link the financial capital Mumbai and Ahmedabad in the state of Gujurat....

The cost will be around £10bn. Surely it would be better to invest in air travel.. especially at that distance? Is there even a demand to link those two cities?

There's already 16 flight a day and they take an hour and a half..

Of course Amhedabad is in Modi's beloved Gujarat but sounds like a vanity project to me..

 

[Bletchleyite]

Don't forget quite how deep the railway goes in India's national psyche.

 

[edwin_m]

The cost will be around £10bn. Surely it would be better to invest in air travel.. especially at that distance? Is there even a demand to link those two cities?

There's already 16 flight a day and they take an hour and a half..

If the train journey becomes only two hours as suggested, then international experience suggests that rail should take most of the market from air. Even an airport-to-airport journey might be quicker by train once security and check-in times are factored in. So, assuming the travel market between the two cities is enough to fill a train or two every hour, this would seem to make sense.

Interesting to see what track gauge they intend to use.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If the train journey becomes only two hours as suggested, then international experience suggests that rail should take most of the market from air. Even an airport-to-airport journey might be quicker by train once security and check-in times are factored in. So, assuming the travel market between the two cities is enough to fill a train or two every hour, this would seem to make sense.

It's certainly a paradigm shift - Indian railways is generally about one or two very long trains per day between key destinations.

 

[vrbarreto]

The problem is that the project will probably cost twice as much and take a long time to build. I remember seeing parts of the Konkan railway being built and that took almost a decade... In the time it takes the bullet train to star, the large Lo Cost carriers like Go Air and Jet will be able to take most of the market away.

Also Delhi is served by a fairly new airport. I can't see a new terminal being built for this train.. Also land prices are pretty high in Delhi.. Will the have to use existing track to get into the station or will they have to build a new section.

They would be better off having spent this money on improving facilities for ordinary passengers instead of a line which will probably try and charge a price just below the airliners..

 

[xjtyou]

Many people said HSR was a waste too when China started to run their HSR several years ago

 

[gazthomas]

I support this idea, my experiences of HSR in China and especially Japan are nothing but positive.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

It's certainly a paradigm shift - Indian railways is generally about one or two very long trains per day between key destinations.

Currently there are 19 trains listed to run either 6 or 7 days per week between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. There are quite a few more that run on one, two or three days per week. My experience of doing the trip is limited but if you investigate I think that you will find that most trains run fully booked.

The problem, as always, in India will be delivering a good idea. Land acquisition is a legal minefield.

 

[miami]

On a fantasy crayon drawing map, it's en-route for Mumbai-Delhi (via Ahmedabad and Jaipur), and (get this), Mumbai-Karachi.

I can never quite grasp the scale of India. Not so much the size, but the population.

 

[Haydn1971]

The cost will be around £10bn. Surely it would be better to invest in air travel.. especially at that distance? Is there even a demand to link those two cities?

Blink your eyes and there will be a network across the country. I'd expect this to be the first of many lines

 

[miami]

Meanwhile in India...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34910942

The Satpura narrow-gauge network used to be the longest of its kind in India, stretching more than 1,000km (620 miles). But it is now facing closure, writes Mark Tully.
There were once more than 100 narrow-gauge railways in India. They have often been written off as toy trains. The 2ft 6in gauge Satpura engine did look like a toy when I saw it dwarfed by a massive broad-gauge engine in the central Indian city of Jabalpur's station where my journey on the Satpura railways started.
But the narrow-gauge railways of India were built for very serious purposes and were anything but toys for those who benefitted from them. The Satpura railways opened up a previously inaccessible hilly area of central India as part of the government's response to the Great Famine of 1878. Before the railways came, there were only bullock carts to carry food to remote famine-stricken areas. They were very slow and couldn't travel long distances.

(article continues, nice picture of a viaduct too)

 

[ian959]

Blink your eyes and there will be a network across the country. I'd expect this to be the first of many lines

This. Given how deeply the railways are embedded in Indian society it is only logical to think that this is just the first small step into what will undoubtedly become a much longer network.

The railways will always be there. Airlines come and go (especially in the ultra competitive Indian market).