[TusharK]

Bombardier Transportation and the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) have unveiled the train design for India's first Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS).



Under Phase 1 of RRTS, the new train will run on the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut semi-high speed rail corridor. The train's design is said to have been inspired by the Lotus Temple.



According to Bombardier, the trains will offer a host of safety, security and environmental benefits. The semi-high speed, air-conditioned and aerodynamic trainsets will have a 2+2 transverse seating arrangement with comfortable seat pitches, standing spaces and automatic plug-in type sliding doors. The trains will have business class seating and a separate car for women in the 6-car trainsets for regional services. The trains will also be equipped with CCTV cameras.

The 3-car train configuration for the Meerut local transit service will have a capacity of around 900 passengers, while the 6-car trainset for RRTS will be able to accommodate around 1,790 passengers. RRTS trains can be expanded to 9-car trainsets thanks to their modular design.



The 82 km long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS will have 24 stations. It will be one of the fastest sections in India with a design speed of 180 km. The train will reduce travel time between the two cities to less than 60 minutes and is expected to carry around 8 lakh passengers daily.

Link to Team-BHP News

[ruzbehxyz]

Originally Posted by TusharK

The 82 km long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS will have 24 stations. It will be one of the fastest sections in India with a design speed of 180 km. The train will reduce travel time between the two cities to less than 60 minutes and is expected to carry around 8 lakh passengers daily.

When we have the technology, why do we need the Bullet train. That's a question I keep asking myself. Anyway that's another topic.

The Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut sector sees heavy traffic and this new train will definitely help.
This will reduce the unnecessary boarding of regular travellers in the Sleeper class of long distance trains. Relief for those passengers as well.
Thanks for sharing.

[V.Narayan]

Most may not know this but a lot, I mean a lot of the core detailed engineering design of this train has been done/is being done by Cyient Ltd, an Indian company based in Hyderabad.

Over my lifetime I have observed with disappointment as Indian Railways deteriorated into a dusty mess between the 1970s and 2000s. My heart thrills to see this resurrection.

[fordday]

Can some one confirm whether this is an artist's impression or an actual trainset ready to be deployed? I could not confirm from the article.

Is the Delhi Meerut track certified for 180 kmph run?

[avishar]

Originally Posted by fordday

Can some one confirm whether this is an artist's impression or an actual trainset ready to be deployed? I could not confirm from the article.

Is the Delhi Meerut track certified for 180 kmph run?

Yes it is.

It is an artist's impression of an actual train which will be deployed. Construction of the line is going on for now. Actual running of the train is another two years away I would say.


Just to add, construction work has also started on Delhi - Alwar corridor via Gurgoan


Here is the alignment. The interesting bit is, these trains will be capable of running 160 to 180 kmph underground too, since you can see a lot of track is underground in Delhi.




And lastly for Ph-1, the work for Delhi to Panipat should start sometime next year.

Originally Posted by ruzbehxyz

When we have the technology, why do we need the Bullet train. That's a question I keep asking myself. Anyway that's another topic.

This is because building a train with a top-speed of 180 kmph is much easier than building with with a top speed of 320 kmph. There is an orders of magnitude increase in engineering, design and cost. Not only for the train-set itself but also track design, metallurgy, signalling automation etc.

[Sutripta]

High speed tracks are normally fenced off. What is the plan here?

Sutripta

[avishar]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

High speed tracks are normally fenced off. What is the plan here?

Sutripta

The track is underground in sections and elevated in other sections.

[Sutripta]

^^^
Nothing At Grade?

Sutripta

[ArjunPadmakumar]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

High speed tracks are normally fenced off. What is the plan here?

Sutripta

The RRTS in the Delhi NCR region will be mostly elevated and underground in few sections. For the Delhi Meerut Line(where these Bombardier rakes will run) for example, 68km will be elevated and 14.1km will be underground and a Tiny 1.4km will be at grade and this part will be fenced in the same way metro lines are done.

There will be 2 other sections both of which are under various stages of construction and are expected to open in the mid-2020s and they are the Delhi Panipat line and the Delhi- Alwar line.In a part of the Meerut RRTS line, Meerut metro is expected to run on the same tracks to cut costs. The RRTS rakes will the 6 coach rake mentioned above and the Meerut metro Rake will be 3 coach rake which are also to be made by Bombardier in Gujarat.

This is an impression of how the NCR Metro and RRTS system will hopefully look like in 5-7 years.



Regarding the confusion about why RRTS are necessary, such a form of mass rapid system is necessary in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore where there is a daily commuter traffic from satellite cities and not just the immediate suburbs.

A rough Hierarchy of Railed transit could be like:

Monorail (light transit for the Central business district where its impossible to built a metro system). Lines are usually under 10 km long and speeds of 20-40kmph.



Metro-rail (the 3 to 8 coach modern rake overground/underground system that is fast and extremely efficient in most cities worldwide which usually serves and links a city with its suburbs). In some cities the monorail and metro-rail systems are interlinked. Each line is typically 20-40 km long and speeds of 50-90kmph.



RRTS which is the subject of this page and connects a mega city(population <10 million) with its numerous satellite cities or towns. Lines are 80-150 km long and speeds of 100-160kmph.

Semi-High Speed Rail corridors(speeds of 160kmph to 200kmph) and High speed rail corridors or HSR (speeds over 240kmph). Examples of semi-HSR can be the proposed Silver-line rail project running the length of Kerala and the HSR example
can be the under construction Mumbai- Ahmedabad HSR corridor both of which will be hopefully completed by the mid to late 2020s. Semi-HSR and HSR lines are between 200-500km in most cases.

Then there other rail transit like dedicated freight corridors where Goods trains will move unrestricted (example: the eastern and western Dedicated Frieght corridors from NCR to Kolkata and Mumbai respectively)

Airport Metro lines that are sort of a hybrid between Metro and RRTS. Trams are a Hybrid of monorails and BRTS (bus rapid transit).Vande Bharat trains(https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/comme...ess-train.html (Vande Bharat Express (Train 18) - Made-In-India Engineless Train)) could be considered as a semiHSR trainset running on legacy lines.

From just having a massive complicated Indian railway system with its confusing and chaotic intercity trains, goods trains and commuter trains like Mumbai local train network we are finally moving towards a much more clean, safe, efficient and modern system of public transport!

[digitalnirvana]

Excellent development. I'm a big believer of semi high speed trains as an efficient mode of transport within zones of the country which already have dense vehicular traffic and which are not large enough to be viable for air transport.

The NCR+ region (NCR, Western UP, Haryana and Punjab) can really benefit from a grid of Semi High Speed network. Similarly Mumbai+ (Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, plus say upto Pune and Nasik). I'd even say Bangalore+, Chennai+ and Kolkata-Bhubaneswar are good candidates.

True High Speed Rail is a long time away for a country as big and poor as ours.

[avishar]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

^^^
Nothing At Grade?

Sutripta

No. The reason being, where can one build an at-grade railway line in Delhi, that too high speed? It is impossible.

In India it is actually cheaper to go elevated because it reduces land acquistion costs and inside Delhi city limits, it is cheaper to go underground.

To build an at-grade line one would need a lot of land & acquire private land and demolish private establishments. Plus getting environmental clearances is a headache not to mention opposition by citizens and private owners.

If you look at your railway network, the amount of brand new, greenfield alignment built since the British left is very little. The British left us with 55,000 km of route track which is now after 70 years approaching 70,000 km of track.

However, running track (actually amount of track) has gone upto 120,000 km+ because have we have doubled, tripled and quadrupled many single lines, electrified them, converted narrow and metre gauge to broad gauge, overhauled tracks, signalling everything. But there are still some holes in the network because building a new line is very difficult from a land acquisition point-of-view.

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

Regarding the confusion about why RRTS are necessary, such a form of mass rapid system is necessary in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore where there is a daily commuter traffic from satellite cities and not just the immediate suburbs.

Absolutely correct.

Some more Semi-HSR (180 to 250 kmph) lines have already been approved other than Silver line.

One is Rajkot to Ahmedabad by G-Ride (Gujarat Rail Development). The other is MAHARAIL's Pune - Nashik Semi-HSR. Both these lines will interect with Mumbai - Ahmedabad - Delhi HSR and Mumbai - Nagpur HSR.

[N.A.GTC]

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

This is an impression of how the NCR Metro and RRTS system will hopefully look like in 5-7 years.

Attachment 2060060

Very interesting! The map does not include Phase 4 of Delhi Metro, though.
I know I'm nitpicking here now

And I agree, these trains would be super useful for MANY people. I know small-scale businessmen/traders, other professionals (drivers, electricians etc.), college students who regularly travel from these cities to Delhi. This would definitely be a huge infrastructural development!


I wonder if similar levels of cleanliness would be maintained on the RRTS as the Delhi Metro, or if the cleanliness levels would reduce as we go further from Delhi. We never know with our nation, really.

[norhog]

This is a great development.
This R.R.T.S must be implemented to other metropolitan areas across India.

I understand this uses standard gauge tracks. This is same as the High speed Rail planned, and just started to be built between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. This will in the future connect Delhi.

Can these tracks be upgraded to run High Speed trains (SHINKANSEN) in the future?

Thank you..

[RedTerrano]

Originally Posted by TusharK

The 82 km long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS will have 24 stations. It will be one of the fastest sections in India with a design speed of 180 km.

Doesn't that sound too short a distance with too many stops? How does the math work out? Is there enough distance in between stations for the train to reach it's full speed? I always thought fast speed trains would make more sense over long distances.

On a related note, the pics reminded me of this Begin Japanology episode. A long watch, but definitely worth it. Peter Barakan tells us how the Japanese did it. Lots of episodes of Begin Japanology available on youtube, which offer a wonderful insight into the Japanese culture.

https://youtu.be/PbWxMHVRn4k

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by norhog

Can these tracks be upgraded to run High Speed trains (SHINKANSEN) in the future?

Checked Wiki:

The Shinkansen uses 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge in contrast to the 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) narrow gauge of older lines. - CHECK

Continuous welded rail - CHECK and swingnose crossing points - POSSIBLE UPGRADE? are employed.

A combination of ballasted and slab track is used. - POSSIBLE UPGRADE?

I think other problems will be:
1. integrating viaducts / tunnels in a way that doesn't result in sonic booms as the tracks will pass through populated areas
2. automated signalling systems with high (six sigma +) reliability
3. uninterrupted electrical supply

Should be doable if there is planning done upfront.