India Crafting 250 kmph 'Made in India' Bullet Trains

07 Jun 2024 CW Team

According to officials familiar with the matter, the railways has assigned the task of locally manufacturing two standard-gauge bullet trains this fiscal year to the state-owned Integral Coach Factory (ICF), as discussions with Japanese suppliers became stalled over pricing.

It was revealed that India will be manufacturing a train capable of achieving maximum speeds of 250 kilometres per hour (kmph) for the first time.

These two trains are anticipated to operate on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor, which is valued at Rs 1.08 trillion.

The trains are expected to be constructed on the Vande Bharat platform. Experts expressed that while utilizing an existing platform would aid ICF in reducing the time required to introduce the trainsets, supplying them within this fiscal year would pose a challenge.

A senior official familiar with the decision informed, "ICF, Chennai has been assigned the task of constructing and delivering two standard-gauge trainsets of eight cars each, featuring a steel car body, with a running speed of 220 kmph and a maximum speed of 250 kmph." He added that the order for the trains was issued earlier this week. Discussions with a consortium of Japanese rolling stock suppliers - Hitachi and Kawasaki - have been ongoing for a considerable time but have not progressed much.

"As negotiations are ongoing, we anticipate the Japanese to adhere closely to our cost estimates for the supply of bullet train rolling stock," stated a second official. The official further added that it would take suppliers approximately three years from the award date to fulfill the contract terms.

The estimated cost of a 10-coach bullet train was Rs 3.89 billion in 2018. Each train was supposed to achieve cruising speeds of over 300 kmph. However, in 2023, the estimated supply cost was revised to Rs 4.60 billion per trainset.

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