[silverado]

Talgo coaches would need to be converted to sleeper one's , since a 12+ hour journey in chair car would be too much.
Even if the gain in time is not significant, we should not forget these are aluminum alloy coaches and gain in FE would be substantial in long run.

Since they handle well on curves, they would improve passenger experience in Premium trains like Rajdhani.

[silversteed]

This piece of news is worth a mention here:

Fastest train to link Madgaon, Mumbai (The Hindu, Oct 14, 2002)

MUMBAI Oct. 13. If all goes well, and Konkan Railway Corporation is optimistic, the country's first 150 kmph train linking Madgaon in Goa and Mumbai will become operational by the end of March 2003.

It will cover 442 kms in a mere three-and-half hours, making it the fastest train on the Indian Railways network.

While there is a lot of hype surrounding the Talgo train and quite a lot of chest-thumping , it's good to understand what is practical in our present condition and how best can our entire system be developed for faster and safer journeys, at the same time, maintaining rail travel approachable to the masses.

[maddy42]

Originally Posted by silversteed

This piece of news is worth a mention here:

Fastest train to link Madgaon, Mumbai (The Hindu, Oct 14, 2002)


While there is a lot of hype surrounding the Talgo train and quite a lot of chest-thumping , it's good to understand what is practical in our present condition and how best can our entire system be developed for faster and safer journeys, at the same time, maintaining rail travel approachable to the masses.

Curious to know what happened in the above case?

Talgo is an interesting move and i am watching it with bated breath. The reason being indian railways is a behemoth or kumbakaran. Most land holdings, carrying most capacity and reaching corners never reached before. Those are positives. Negatives are listed by one and all. Outdated systems, bad signalling, unlimited number of stops, terrible bueracracy and ministers more interested in their constituency. There was a case with one minister from the east who basically ensured every train either originated from or went through their state in the east.

Talgo can be succesful, but it has to either come from the Niti Ayog or from the PMOs office. There will be a lot of hoo haa when that announcement is made but dont we deserve something better? The train needs modifications, we can eliminate the pantry car and have only chair or sleeper, capacity can be increased. Can have a clause to make in india.

I am for increasing speeds of our trains to atleast keep up with the volvos. Mumbai blr takes 24 hours by train and was 17 hours by bus. Just fyi.

Maddy

[bhaskar.guru]

As far as I have read, the Talgo trains are going to be manufactured in India. They will do the technology transfer and manufacture them here.

They ran with mud sacks placed on seats to get the weight of passengers along with officials from the Railways.

While I welcome this move to find alternates till we get any HSR, it would also be good to analyse and decongest the existing railway network by building more lines in parallel. I mean, just look at the stretch between Delhi to Nagpur, it is one of the most busiest stretch with almost all trains coming from Delhi to South using the same line.

Now with new services like the Humsafar or the other two announced this year, we will just have more trains in the already congested network. And how many price points will we have? Already we know that Bullet train is going to cost almost equivalent to Flight fares and now this? With Dynamic pricing and all, Railway travel is just going to become more and more costlier day by day.

[gauravdgr8]

We started hearing about the Talgo in April.

Coaches landed on the 21st of April.

Testing started around a month later.

100 days and we have been receiving constant updates about the testing, initial hiccups, what speeds achieved at what interval and now the conclusion of the test. This kind of co-ordinated effort is something not seen in India. There is genuine effort to do something which makes us to believe that Talgo would/should see light of day.

[rahulskumar]

Railways should make sure that the existing trains be designed to run at an average speed of 140 kms/hr . Achieving this will reduce traveling time to a great extend.

Gatimaan express which uses Indian made rakes run at top speed of 160 kms/hr. Then why do we need to import Talgos to just increase top speed by 20 ? Infact during the test runs, these Talgos were pulled by our beloved WPD diesel engines.

Why will it be difficult for our locomotive manufacturers to design rakes ?
I think this is due to the middlemen to fill in their pockets. Allow our locomotive manufacturers to run independently without any political influence

Instead of importing stuff and affecting our currency, Railways should make sure that we have double lane tracks across India and increase the average speed for these trains. Consider example of Kerala, most of the trains for Trivandrum will be late by 30-40 minutes due to single track and waiting at crossings. Even if Talgo rakes are commissioned to run in this route, no way it will make it to Trivandrum at correct time unless all other trains onroute are halted to make way for the purpose

[gauravdgr8]

Originally Posted by rahulskumar

Railways should make sure that the existing trains be designed to run at an average speed of 140 kms/hr . Achieving this will reduce traveling time to a great extend.

Gatimaan express which uses Indian made rakes run at top speed of 160 kms/hr. Then why do we need to import Talgos to just increase top speed by 20 ? Infact during the test runs, these Talgos were pulled by our beloved WPD diesel engines.

Why will it be difficult for our locomotive manufacturers to design rakes ?
I think this is due to the middlemen to fill in their pockets. Allow our locomotive manufacturers to run independently without any political influence

1. Gatiman is able to do it after lot of modification to the tracks in the Delhi - Agra section.

2. The issue lies in the design of our coaches and not the engines. If you look at the 1st page of this thread, there are 2 pictures explaining the same. Indian coaches are not designed to run at higher speeds on turns.

3. Middlemen. Not sure. Everything is possible in Indian politics, however we should surely give everyone a chance to prove themselves. The government is making an effort to improve a lot of things. Let's see what they are able to achieve. I personally do not see an issue in importing this technology and building it in India.

Remember:Talgo is ready for technology transfer.

[rahulskumar]

@Gaurav, you may be correct, but Railways should make sure average speed should be made higher . For this doubling of track is necessary.

[turbospooler]

Any idea how much fuel Talgo connected engine sipped? I cannot find this critical data point in any news coverage.
Also, what is the regular fuel consumption of trains with Indian coaches.
IMHO, the debate should be moved from who is the fastest to who is the most fuel efficient.
If the fuel efficiency is really good, then the government should think of inducting these trains.
Reason? The railways' fuel expense is dominated by diesel and this in turn can be one of the keys to reduce expense and generate operating profit.

[tharian]

Originally Posted by turbospooler

Any idea how much fuel Talgo connected engine sipped?

The Talgo coaches trial run were conducted with both diesel and electric loco's depending on the routes.

[LoneRidder]

Originally Posted by Omkar

Attachment 1553800 In 2014, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, the head of Alstom's transport (French high-speed train manufacturing company) stated that India is at least 5-10 years away from bullet trains. He also went on to say that India should concentrate on increasing existing average train speeds from 80 km/h to 120 km/h rather than thinking of bullet trains.

Well, when Lafarge made that statement he had a strong reasons for it.

Today, Indian Railways is in a very bad financial situation. While we can be proud of Railways being one the largest employers, the Railways have failed to meet the basic customer requirements and also has miserably failed to meet the growing demand from the economy.

If we look through the numbers, Railways had and has been on high demand irrespective of poor service quality. At this point, more than speed and 'cosmetic' appeal, the need is to increase the network drastically. The growth of Railway network, from the time of independence, has been one of the lowest in the world. However the demand has gone skyrocketing.

Repeated governments have been using Railways as a 'political facial' to create a feelgood factor to the public.

We can see in the below table the growth of tracks v/s freight and passenger. Though there has been increase of 556% and 1344% respectively in passenger and freight, there has been only 52% increase in tracks. This is causing of lot strains on the existing routs.

Majority of the railways lines, across the nation, has been utilised beyond 100%.

If we look at the revenue share too, the passenger revenue has been around 25~27% in recent years, rest being given by goods service. However the track occupancy of goods is less compared to passengers! The rail fare in India has been one of the lowest in the world, however the goods fare has been one on the higher side. From the operations point of view Speed trains like Talgo may not help in the bottom or top line for the organisation.

In a nutshell, railways have been used mostly for political facial to create larger public sentiment. Though service of Shatabdi Rajdhani and others should be appreciated, they have failed to effectively utilise it. The Talgo train, again, could be used as a show piece of the government.

Railways have been one of the highly demanded service, but the organisation has failed badly to capitalise the demand. Even with poor service they have been highly overbooked. This would be one of the rare organisations that has too much of demand but low output. Most of the long distance trains get filled within hours of opening of booking, that too few quarters away from the actual travel dates.

The need of the hours is for substantial investments for increase in track network. Unless tracks are not multiplied in next few years, the railways could see a major disaster.

Surprisingly, compared to most of the European rail networks, the accident ratio in India is the lowest. The Red Alert point however is, every year nearly 4500 km of track should be renewed. But, due to financial constraints, the progress in track renewals is constantly coming down over the last six years. There is a whooping 5300 km backlog. The railways must open up for private participation and find source for huge fund.

More on this can be found in the White Paper released by railways last year:

http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/rai...r-_English.pdf

[maddy42]

Bibek debroy has written a nice set of articles on the railways. Please do read it.

http://swarajyamag.com/columns/railw...-competition-i

I dont want to sound like a supporter or anything but this current minister is taking every chance to improve the infra of the railways, both track laying, signalling as well as electrification. Infra spend is the only way of improving the service quality so that railways can catch up to the air and road ways.

Coming back to Talgo, its an experiment, the real train is yet to arrive, the rules and regulations for procurement of these trains have not been spoken yet. I would be really surprised if the govt maker of trains will be able to achieve this amount of technology in their product. If talgo is the way to go, you could make them to build it in india. That way we get a tech transfer too.

Maddy

[avdhesh15]

I hope they can introduce something similar for Mumbai to Ahmedabad rather than waiting for the bullet train. Couple of weeks back I paid 10k for a one-way trip due to some expo happening there whereas regularly I pay around 8-10k return (all last moment bookings)!

[scopriobharath]

Originally Posted by maddy42

If talgo is the way to go, you could make them to build it in india. That way we get a tech transfer too.

Maddy

It might be cheaper for them to import train sets from Madrid, instead of manufacturing locally. Since there is no kind of tax or import duties for government-public infrastructure purchases, it is easier to import them by sea.

Since they would be only a handful of train sets across sectors (As this is premium), it is easier to build in Europe than here.

[norhog]

Talgo is a great idea. But any one who has travelled on Indian railways long distance will know the train run about 80 or 109 kph for about 15 to 20 mins till it reaches some small station where it slows down and again speeds up.
May be signalling is done slowly or there are speed restrictions but that's what happens.
So basically we need good tracks and signals.
All the high density routes, i. e between metros must be made 4 tracks. The faster train tracks can be made over bridges where there is a town or so.
So our conventional trains with LHB coaches can maintain 100 Kmph or so continously for longer stretches. This itself will reduce travel times by 4 to 5 hrs on most routes.
So hard core investment in infrastructure is required.
No point in importing TALGOs and then running them like we do now, speed up for a few minutes then run slow.