Rail travel in India has traditionally been meant for the aam aadmi and not aimed at the well heeled business traveller, or even the middle class traveller who has now shifted to airlines courtesy incredibly low fares trotted out by the airlines. While the air passenger may admittedly be looking for convenience and time saving rather than ticket price as a determinant of choice, the railways?which should be a competitor?fall woefully short in both services offered and prices charged. However, with oil prices at a record high, railways have a real opportunity.
While short inter-city rail journeys may involve a quicker transit from city center to city center as compared to air, long ?overnight and beyond?rail travel is hardly a deliberate choice for a discerning traveller, for whom time is money. The success of the Shatabdi Express trains introduced in the late 1980s was driven primarily by the fact that the trains were scheduled at convenient arrival and departure times for major metros which they served. In addition the trains were clean, fast, efficient, and often punctual.
The Shatabdi trains were primarily aimed at the day time traveller and they did enable the railways to wean away a sizable chunk of clientele from the air sector, including the high end business traveller who could afford air, but still chose rail for its convenience of transit from city center to city center, especially on some routes such as the Delhi-Chandigarh sector. This is an area which has enormous potential, which the Railways world over, especially European rail networks with their short haul routes, are aggressively pursuing.
Germany?s Deutsche Bahn runs a ?Sprinter? service which has reduced the Cologne-Frankfurt transit time to under three hours. By 2020 Spain will have a 10,000 km network placing almost 90% of the population within a few dozen km of a high-speed rail line. With an optimum speed of about 300 kmph, its AVE (Alta Velocidad Espanola) trains already provide transit times of one-and-a-half hours from Madrid to Cordoba and Zaragossa, while to Seville it takes only two-and-a-half hours, The proposed new Madrid-Barcelona high-speed link, covering a distance of 504 km, (about the same as Delhi to Lalitpur near Jhansi), would cut the existing transit time of five hours to almost half.
However, high speed upgrades don?t come cheap. Between the competing need for carrying more freight by building Dedicated Freight Corridors, introducing hundreds of new trains to please the political class, and last but not the least, more of populist measures viz. Jan Shatabdis etc. for the aam aadmi, the high speed venture in India could remain a distant dream for a very long time to come.
Things could be different if India chooses to follow the Chinese model, where political will backs all long term investments, based on pragmatic considerations. The Chinese have set up two 2,500 km long high speed corridors from Beijing in the north to the southern cities bordering Hongkong, with super fast trains completing the journey in only 25 hours. The Rajdhani from Delhi to Bangalore takes 36 hours.
Not only the track, even the coaching stock needs an urgent upgrade. The recent upgrade from the ?Schlieren?, a 1950?s Swiss design, to LHB (Linke Haufman Busch), a 1980?s design, can hardly meet the 200 kmph plus demands of a high speed network. China has opted for not one or two, but five different makers of rolling stock, with technologies suited for high speed running. Interestingly these foreign collaborators have been quite positive about sharing technology with local partners. Most of them stand to gain?in local and export markets?from China?s comparative advantage in low cost manufacturing.
The new Rs 1,400 crore coach manufacturing facility proposed at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh and one at Palakkad in Kerala will perhaps introduce new technologies for coaches capable of running at 200 kmph and above, ushering in an era of high speed rail travel, which could truely take on the airlines for fast, cheap and efficient inter-city travel.
The author is former member, Railway Board. Email: acharya@bol.net.in