High Speed Rail Corporation of India (HSRC) was launched as a subsidiary of the public sector Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd.

India and Japan have recently signed an agreement to have a joint feasibility study for a high speed rail system on Mumbai- Ahmedabad route. India has also sought French assistance for high speed railways on different select routes.

Inaugurating a two-day international technical conference on “High Speed Rail Travel; Low Cost Solution” here on Tuesday, the Indian Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said : “the focus of this conference is to consider achieving higher speed trains in the range of 160 to 200 km per hour with marginal inputs in the existing infrastructure. Achieving this higher speed train travel 160 to 200 km per hour will also need understanding of many new technologies which Indian Railways has not been extensively exposed to, such as aerodynamic profiles, light weight technologies, cab signaling.”

Saying so the Minister did not rule out the possibility of high speed rail systems of global standards. He said : “This intermediate step can be considered preparatory to achieve high speed train travel of 250 to 300 km per hour in the foreseeable future.”

The Railway Minister formerly launched High Speed Rail Corporation of India Ltd. (HSRC), a subsidiary of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL) and also revealed the logo of HSRC that has been designed by National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Kharge said that most countries consider high speed capability to be in the range of 250 to 300 kmph which requires a dedicated track with fencing and can be prohibitively costly, besides given the financial constraints and issues related to land acquisition and track fencing, as an interim step. For a country like ours track fencing also has its own set of associated issues. For speeds above 200 kmph the costlier and time consuming solution of providing a separate dedicated track with fencing becomes inescapable.

The Minister said that India’s primary focus has been to provide a mass mode of safe, reliable and affordable transport, being the largest passenger railway in the world, it is a natural aspiration of the people of this country that Indian Railways provide them high speed rail travel.

“Indian Railways carries over seven billion people annually which is equal to the entire human population on earth. Our recent focus on technology upgradation has been driven largely to achieve higher levels of safely for our passengers. Despite the fiscal constraints in upgrading the ageing infrastructure and in face of rising costs, the number of train accidents per million train kms has reduced from 0.41 to 0.13 over the past decade,” Karge said.

Indian Railways had attained speed of 120 km per hour on its Mumbai-Kolkata Rajdhani express train route way back in1973. In 1998 the Bhopal Shatabdi express became India’s fastest train attaining a speed of 140 km per hour which was further increased to 150 km per hour in 2006.

Addressing the conference, Chairman, Railway Board, Arunendra Kumar said that Indian Railways has undertaken pre-feasibility studies of seven high speed corridors.

A preliminary study for Mumbai-Ahemdabad route has estimated its cost to be around Rs. 65,000 crore. Towards this purpose the Institute of Rolling Stock Engineers (IRSE) with support from Indian Railways and RITES is organising this International Technical Conference. The themes of the conference will include: World overview of High Speed technologies, High speed Bogie Technologies, Importance of Train Dynamics for high speed operation, Wheel sets for high speed operation, Lightweight coach Technologies, Track and infrastructure, Signalling technologies, Traction related issues, brake systems, Crashworthiness Manufacturing and maintenance aspects specific to High Speed operation and Safety.

Speaking on the occasion the Chairman of HSRC and CMD of RVNL Satish Agnihotri said that HSRC has been formed to develop High Speed Rail (HSR) Corridors in India to run passenger trains at speeds up to 350 km per hour. It will undertake the project activities such as preparation of project related studies, preparation of the technical standards for HSR Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor and any other corridor decided by the Government. It will provide support to Ministry of Railways and Government of India in finalizing the financial and implementation models.

The conference is being attended by policy makers, senior administrators, rolling stock manufacturers, research institutions, consultants and industry professionals from India and abroad. This will provide networking opportunities with senior railway officials as well as other stakeholders. There are opportunities for displaying capabilities through advertisements and exhibition stalls. For helping in better understanding of High Speed rail travel implementation challenges and their solutions, many equipment manufacturers are also present who will be presenting the latest development in high speed technology and the benefits thereof. Many international consulting experts as well as universities are also participating in the conference sharing their rich project experience in the field of high speed travel.

Total of 49 papers will be presented in the conference, which include 25 papers by foreign delegates, 13 papers by Research Design and Standard Organisation and Indian Railways, and balance by the Industry and case-studies for high speed network from Australia, and SPAIN will be discussed during this two day conference. Eleven Countries representing the Conference are Germany, Spain, Australia, US, UK, Japan, France, South Africa, Switzerland, Italy and China. Major rolling stock ‘manufactures such as Bombardier, Talgo, CAF, Alstom and Siemens will be among those participating in the Conference. They will share their knowledge in high speed technology as well as experience in various parts of the world and also in providing low cost solutions.

Additional member, Production Unit, Railway Board who is also Chairman of IRSE and Chairman Organising Committee of the Conference Arvind Khare proposed a vote of thanks on the occasion. It is expected that low cost solutions would emerge at the end of the deliberations to make high speed a reality for the developing world, where the demand is high, yet cost-effective solutions are evasive.