Bullet trains and high speed Diamond Quadrilateral railnetwork
08 Jul 2014
Presenting the Railway Budget 2014-15 in Parliament today, railway minister D V Sadananda Gowda said Indian Railways is on its way to fulfill the long cherished dream to run a Bullet Train. He said the Railways proposes to run bullet trains beginning with the already identified Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector, where a number of studies have been carried out.
The minister said, the Railways is embarking on an ambitious plan to create a Diamond Quadrilateral Network of high speed rail, connecting major metros and growth centers of the country. A provision of Rs100 crore has been made in the budget for high speed project to RVNL / HSRC (high speed rail corridor) for taking further steps, he said.
He said, while bullet trains would require completely new infrastructure, higher speed for existing trains will be achieved by upgrading the present network. The minister said an effort will be made to increase the speed of trains to 160-200 kmph in select sectors so as to significantly reduce travel time between major cities. The identified sectors are:
- Delhi-Agra
- Delhi-Chandigarh
- Delhi-Kanpur
- Nagpur-Bilaspur
- Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai
- Mumbai-Goa
- Mumbai-Ahmedabad
- Chennai-Hyderabad
- Nagpur-Secunderabad
