India to buy Bullet Trains?

[Daredevil]

India in talks to buy first bullet trains

New Delhi: India is in talks to buy its first bullet trains for the nation's creaking and accident-prone network, but the new fleet will run at only a fraction of its top speed, a report said on Wednesday.

The government is speaking to Japanese, French and German manufacturers to purchase six new trains, which are capable of running at speeds of up to 325 kilometres (202 miles) per hour, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

"Such projects have a long gestation period, but one has to start somewhere," the newspaper quoted an anonymous official as saying in its report headlined: "Soon: Bullet trains for tortoise tracks".

India's fastest train, the Bhopal Shatabdi, which carries passengers between the capital Delhi and the central Indian city of Bhopal, runs at a maximum speed of 150 kilometres (93 miles) per hour.

The dilapidated railways, still the main form of long-distance travel in India despite fierce competition from airlines, run thousands of passenger and freight trains and carry millions of people daily.

India's train system has a notoriously bad accident record, with a recent official report revealing that almost 15,000 people are killed each year while crossing rail tracks -- a figure the government described as a "massacre".

Derailments, collisions and other accidents are also common.

 

[Zebra]

High-speed rail in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Kunal Biswas]

I come to know that Indian trains run as fast as 180km/h in main routes..

I think its a good discussion to buy these trains, But need best crew to maintain them..

 

[Tolaha]

High-speed rail in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of the three lines connecting Bangalore, I can't see the point of 2 of the lines atleast! Bangalore to Ernakulam and that one between Bangalore to somewhere in the middle of the map!

The line that passes through the whole of Kerala has to be the one most difficult to implement!

 

[Armand2REP]

My only concern is the profitability of such a venture. As we have seen in China, not even Chinis make enough money to pay profitable ticket prices and they build it cheaper than anyone. If such a line is made, it will need to be limited to upper middle class and wealthy.

 

[amoy]

My only concern is the profitability of such a venture. As we have seen in China, not even Chinis make enough money to pay profitable ticket prices and they build it cheaper than anyone. If such a line is made, it will need to be limited to upper middle class and wealthy.

Indeed, most means of public transportation is not profitable in China, including city bus, metro and bullet train, which're living on govnmt subsidy despite high utilization ratio owing to low fare. For example Fuzhou-Xiamen one-way trip costs only rmb81 (usd12.8) for 275km by HSR.