Indian Railways to Cooperate With Germany to Increase the Speed of Passenger Trains to 200 kmph

The current Joint Declaration is intended to deepen the cooperation, more specifically towards the achievement in the priority area of Semi High-Speed Rail.

Written by: India.com Business Desk

Updated: October 11, 2017, 10:32 AM IST

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प्रतीकात्मक चित्र

New Delhi, October 11: In a bid to make India’s existing rail corridors semi-high speed, Germany will help Indian Railways to increase the speed of passenger trains to 200 kmph on 50.50 percent cost-sharing basis. The Indian Railways and German Railways on Tuesday signed a Joint Declaration of intent regarding carrying out of feasibility study on existing Chennai-Kazipet corridor of Indian Railways for increasing the speed trains on existing corridors. The current Joint Declaration between Railways of the two nations is intended to deepen the cooperation, more specifically towards the achievement in the priority area of Semi High-Speed Rail.

The upgrading of current passenger services to SHS (Semi High Speed) up to 200 kmph on the Chennai-Kazipet corridor (643 km). The Project is envisaged to consist of three phases to be carried out over a 22 month period with the following objectives:

• Phase 1: Definition of three demand-based Upgrade scenarios for the corridor
• Phase 2: Selection of the preferred Upgrade scenario for SHS on the corridor, based on analysis of respective operations and economic-financial impact.
• Phase 3: For preferred scenario, Reference design and technical Tender document.

The cost of the feasibility study will be shared 50.50 percent by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and Government of the Federal Republic of Germany. The final terms and conditions of carrying out of this feasibility study shall be completed by signing a separate Agreement.

IR & German Rly sign Joint Declaration of intent regarding carrying out of feasibility study on Chennai-Kazipet 4 increasing speed 200 kmph pic.twitter.com/9SxQuYp3gw

— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) October 10, 2017

According to a government press release, a Protocol on cooperation in Rail sector was signed earlier between both sides in May, 2016 in Germany, with concepts for increasing the design and the actually driven speeds; concepts for increasing the capacity of railway lines in passenger and goods transport; concepts for improving operational safety to avoid incidents and accidents, concepts for reducing operational costs, in particular by means of energy efficient railway operations; Concepts for the cooperation between education and training facilities in India and Germany with the objective of enhancing the railway know how; supporting the expansion of the high speed and semi high speed network; joint development of user-oriented standards and norms for India with the participation of the competent regulatory authorities and concepts for station redevelopment on modern lines.

About the Chennai-Kazipet Corridor

The maximum sectional speed on the corridor is 110 kmph in Southern Railway and 120 kmph for South Central Railway. There are 216 (Southern Railway-68 & South Central Railway-148) level crossings on the corridor and all are manned.   There are 1979 (Southern Railway-514 & South Central Railway-1465) number of bridges on this corridor.  There is only one direct train from Kazipet to Chennai i.e. Train No. 12760/Charminar SF Express taking 11 hours 20 minutes with 13 stoppages at an average speed of 57 kmph.