Summary:
The railways is on track to shave five hours off the travel time on the busy Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes in its bid to make high-speed trains a reality. The upgrade aims to bring this down to 10 hours (at a cost of Rs 6,806 crore) and 12 hours (Rs 6,684 crore), respectively, by allowing trains to zip at 160 kilometres an hour. As part of the plan, tracks on the routes will be replaced with better ones, signalling systems upgraded, bridges strengthened, level crossings eliminated and other technical enhancements done. But unless freight trains are shifted, investing in infrastructure will not yield results," said Subodh Jain, former Railway Board member. Revving Up The RailwaysA bird’s eye-view of railways’ 11-point action plan to modernise train travel.