India to launch semi-speed trains by 2020

The Indian Railways have announced their plans to release self-propelled and semi-high-speed trains by 2020. Because of its release date, the project is code-named “Train-20”.

The trains will run at 160 kilometres per hour, and once the project collaboration is finalized, they will be manufactured under the railway ministry’s Integral Coach Factory (or ICF).

Rumours say that these trains will operate on major metro routes such as the Delhi-Mumbai route. However, although it is a “Make in India” project, the first rake will be coming from abroad.

Sudhanshu Mani, the general manager of the ICF, explains how they have called bids for this first rake, and they are hoping that one of the European manufacturers such as Siemens or Bombardier will bag the order.

The budget of the project has been approximated to a massive amount of ₹2,500 crores, making it one of the most ambitious projects under “Make in India”. The order for the Indian Railways will encompass 14 train sets, with each of them having 20 regular coaches and 11 spare coaches.

This adds up to a total of 291 coaches. The design, development, manufacturing, testing, and commissioning of the trainsets will be covered in the contract.

These semi-high-speed trains will be aluminium-bodied and self-propelled, and they will be extremely energy-efficient. The ICF has also said that they will have other functionalities, such as an under-slung 3 phase propulsion system, automatic doors, and a test speed of 176 kilometres per hour.

Air-conditioned chair cars and sleeper class coaches are also slated for manufacturing.

AC 1st class, AC-2 tier and AC-3 tier will be assembled for the sleeper coaches. Mani explained that train tracks will be receiving upgrades so that the trains will be able to run at their high speed of 160 kilometres per hour.

The deal will hopefully be finalized by January of 2018, and the passengers of Indian Railways will be able to experience world-class train rides in just a few years.

Image by Wolfgang Reindl from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/photos/india-shimla-kalka-railway-train-232725/