[DogNDamsel12]

In India, as per official statistics, 80 percent of transportation is through Roads & Highways anyway - which is counter to many of the other significant countries.

The poll misses the option of inland waterways and coastal areas. The problem of transportation needs to be explored on many levels -
1) passenger versus freight transportation as each has its own separate requirements
2) lack of last-mile connectivity that simply perks up transportation costs. In the US or other countries, owning a vehicle or using public transportation is really affordable and economical (not cheap)
3) lack of adequate developmental model - NHAI has struggled to float a suitable PPP model;
4) CAPEX has been an issue; asset monetization has its own pros and cons; pro developer but against tax-payers. For the development of Railways, the public sector has been involved, but now seems to be exiting it.

While I am not writing down a definitive analysis on which mechanism was better (if there was truly one), all I am saying is there is no way to rectify, challenge or absolve history or extrapolate from there. The policymakers now are in a soup and visibly so, unless they find a way to hit the sweet spot between social interests and raising private capital to build a smartly interconnected social infrastructure that can eventually reduce costs.

[norhog]

Like everything in life, the answer is not binary.
It is somewhere in between.

Actually we need both in good measures and more, to fulfill our transportation demands.(Goods and people).

Firstly and most importantly, railways use less power and thus fuel for the load carried as compared to road. Also we can power railways by electricity with the electric generation being from any source, Nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, anything... This gives a huge amount of flexibility and does not tie us down to supply of oil from foreign nations. For this point alone, I feel rail based long distance and bulk transportation should be encouraged.

USA with all its interstate and freeways, has bulk of its goods transported by railways. Also USA is now a net exporter of oil and gas and has cheap supply of petroleum from its allies in the gulf region.

Next we are forgetting that we have an almost continuous coastline from west to east and navigable rivers in the middle. Bulk transport by sea and inland waterways is being encouraged and rightly so.

So to summarize, we need a mix of all four modes of transport. Air, Waterways, Road and Rail (IR, HSR DFC) depending on location and situation.

Also we must look to encourage hybrid services, like for example RO RO service by Konkan railway.
One main obstacle of this type of service is that the trucks need to be loaded and off loaded at end stations. This is because the trucks drive across entire length of the flat bed railway rakes, for the entire length of the train, to get to its securing spot.

We should look into ways where with arrangements of suitable ramps attached on individual flat bed railway rakes, the trucks can be loaded and off loaded at any stop in the middle of the way. (Provided there is a platform or suitable arrangements on the station side)

This way we run such RORO service across our railway and DFC network, with suitable truck on and off stations along the way every few 100 kms or so. This way we can transport 50 tons multi axel trucks across the country efficiently and not worry about loading or discharging time of the "cargo" as the truck itself can be driven up to that last mile.

Similarly such RORO services for trucks can be encouraged over Ganga and Brahmaputra, along the Inland Waterway.

We need not be bound down by what, say USA or Europe has done and can tailor our own unique solutions, having the right mix of all.

[TrackDay]

Originally Posted by S15

And if you were a policy maker in the 1950s, what would you choose: develop highways, or develop railways?

If I were a policy maker in the 1950's the first thing to do is to allocate the land and width required for implementing so called road or rail infrastructure in the future. We might have new expressways and highways, but if we were to compare some roads, especially the ones that pass through cities (without by pass) and towns, the infrastructure is not yet there.

Imagine designating all roads in 1950's to be 'so and so' wide with parallel spaces reserved for future development of trains/metros/high speed. One of the biggest hurdle today is acquiring land, not just building the road and train network.

[landcruiser123]

Rail is a better choice. Problem is that India's infrastructure development hasn't kept up with its population growth. You don't even need to look at transportation - just look at the sad reality of people living in slums with no access to clean water & drainage.

Forget bullet trains at 300km/h; Having trains averaging 90-120km/h for the entire journey will be a big step up. I wonder why Bangalore-Chennai can't be done in 3-4 hours on trains. If we started widening roads to match city populations, we shall soon have only roads and no buildings.

Originally Posted by S15

But now, 70 years down the line, people are starting to realize the railway network doesnt really work in such a vast, diverse country.
And the trains, they're not even of a uniform kind. We have everything from shatabdi-rajdhani to non-stop duronto to stop at every village EMU running on the same lines. We cant run 300 kmph trains on these lines. Imagine a 300 kmph bullet train running next to a train an EMU.

Trains running at high speed have dedicated tracks. Japan's bullet trains runs on an exclusive network.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by S15



This video pretty much concludes that in the 1940s and 1950s, the US had an option: To develop highways, or to develop public transport and railways.
And they chose road infrastructure.
Now, contrary to the video, I dont really think it has turned out quite so bad for them.

India, in the 1950s, chose Railways. And chose it in a big way. So much so that we had a separate budget for the Railways. (remember the iconic Lalu Prasad Yadav Mamata Banerjee budgets? They were pure entertainment, irrespective of where you stand on the political spectrum, which, we dont discuss here).

And it helped. In the short-to-medium term, it helped us grow. And it was needed in a semi-socialistic country (pre-1991 opening of the economy), needed for a centralised transport of food, goods, rations, troops and others from one part of the country to another.

So the question is, did we make the right decision? Or did we compromise the long-term future for short-to-mid term gains?
And if you were a policy maker in the 1950s, what would you choose: develop highways, or develop railways?


Interesting thread!

Let’s try to look at this objectively with some data that’s found in Wikipedia and https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwa...sh_2018-19.pdf.

The country that supposedly chose highways over railways has the world’s largest rail network and the country that is assumed to have chosen railways over highways is placed at number 4.



Compare the Route Kms and Running Track Kms for 1950 vs. 2019.




I’ll leave the reader to draw the conclusions. Experts can correct if the data is incorrect.

Let’s get something out the way with respect to context which is way distorted. I think we are referring to inter-state and inter-city networks. It’s a joke to even talk about metro rail infrastructure in India if you think India prioritised railways in the past.

I don’t know if there’s any evidence that India actually chose railways over highways in the 1950s. There may be anecdotal evidence based on the rate of growth in the respective networks but do we have any proof that the Government took a binary choice? May be it’s a case of priority and funds allocation.

IMHO the relatively faster-paced road infrastructure development in recent decades is also because of the Public-Private partnership/BOT model. Likewise for Airports. Do the same in the railways and you can expect to see similar improvements in pace. Someone has to fund the project and then recoup the investments with a profit right?

I believe that the Railway-Budget spectacle was a blocker. It was used as an election-tool to win votes and crippled the development of the railways. It was an absolute joke to watch the Railway ministers prioritise their respective home state over other states. People give up long term benefits for short term lower fares and fancy new train announcements which were mostly only on paper. It was a bane rather than a boon.

For a country like India, the Government cannot and should not be picking one mode of transport over another. Investments are to be made to build the transport network for the next generation (and not for the previous generation) and that includes air, road, rail and waterways. Imagine the boost to employment rates, consumption and productivity if this is done.

[Turbanator]

Everything has to do with the money available in the hands of your people. We needed a long distance public transport and busses were not the solution. For a very long time, a lot of people had to travel in unreserved coaches as they could not even afford reservation fare. Things are changing now and fast.

By 2024-2025 we should have complexly new highways and only reserved trains, majority of which will be air conditioned too.

So, it was a correct decision to prioritize Railways over Roads in the past.

[GeeTee TSI]

Depends on the point of view

Thinking solely as a BHP-ian who has a car and loves driving, I would have voted for Highways

But thinking as an average citizen of this country without the privilege of personal transportation, it is the Railway which brought in and still plays a key role in long distance mobility.

There is also a third point of view from the sustainability angle. The carbon emissions per passenger for covering a certain distance is probably in descending order - plane, car, bus, train. Now that's a real dilemma for a conscientious BHP-ian

[kadanaJ]

I would consider railways to have been a much better decision.

Consider the cost of travelling for a family of 4 from Mumbai to Delhi by road.

It's 1,421 km in distance. Consider a diesel car giving a fuel economy of 13-14. That's almost ₹6/km, or a total trip cost of roughly ₹9,000. That's ₹2,250 per head. And that's assuming you have 4 people. For less people, that cost goes up significantly.

And that's before considering the fatigue of a 25 hour drive.

And without considering the cost of the car, the risk of travelling by road, and the extra cost of car maintenance.

Versus a train in which you can sleep overnight? An AC triple sleeper ticket is ₹1,500 per head for the same journey.

It's pretty much no contest.

[MSC]

Unfortunately, we have been riding both the boats and as the result we have gone nowhere. This may seem to be slightly off the topic but this is what I feel.

Roads.
Everyone knows how well the roads are. Potholes and hopeless infrastructure are the biggest contributors.
To make matters worse, the traffic police is also always on lookout for out of state vehicles. This is a norm in almost every State. If two cars are going, it's most likely that the car with non domicile registration plate will be stopped by police rather than the local one. One nation one road tax is a long cherished dream but it is very unlikely to see the day.
The government is only interested in getting tolls. They are not bothered about anything else. Situation may be improving now but still we are a long way from having a decent, fast, safe and reliable road network.
Lack of enforcement of traffic rules is another headache. You may be driving as a responsible citizen but no one knows when and where you encounter a spoilt brat high on alcohol from last night party and bang into you car at crazy speeds. It's a bitter reality that life and property on Indian roads is cheaper than a night out fun for someone.

Rail network.
The lesser said is better. I am not being political, but whichever state had its railway minister, that state made merry at the expense of rest of country. For pure vote bank politics, they started a bunch of new trains every year but no-one thought where will these new trains run. Trains increased but tracks remained more or less the same. As the result, long waiting for train passings became a norm. Unnecessary stops at stations for long distance trains given at villages whose local politician was a big shot. The northern states like erstwhile J&K, Himachal Pradesh, north east states of seven sisters have been ignored to a large extent for railways. If I am not wrong, the rail network has not increased more than 50 odd kilometres since independence in Himachal. Kashmir valley got trains at the turn of century. Similarly, the status in north east is also not much to boast off.
We are still a long long way away from having a better experience & network of the roads as well as rails.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Everything has to do with the money available in the hands of your people. We needed a long distance public transport and busses were not the solution. For a very long time, a lot of people had to travel in unreserved coaches as they could not even afford reservation fare. So, it was a correct decision to prioritize Railways over Roads in the past.

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Rail is a better choice. Problem is that India's infrastructure development hasn't kept up with its population growth.

Waiting list. Almost all of us are aware of this word and most of us would be on edge of our seats just to get confirmation. That's atrocious in 21st century, isn't it ? Tatkal to rescue with added cost but still will have waiting. Why cant this be solved ? Crux of the matter : We couldn't expand railways in line with our population, neither did we expand quality road network. Missed both boats. As I mentioned in previous post on this thread, we didnt' technically evaluate railways and went in for its rapid expansion. It just happened over a course of time, am sure the development of railways wasn't on anybody's mind till now. Try getting to Dwarka, Gujarat from Surat via railway and see the amount of time it takes.

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

Consider the cost of travelling for a family of 4 from Mumbai to Delhi by road.

Nobody can refute the efficiency of railways when it comes to mass transport. However, who is actually bearing the cost ? Back in 2001-2016 I had to travel a lot, a 2nd AC ticket did cost me around Rs. 2800/- for Rajdhani. Preferred Rajdhani as it took less time to travel and would mostly travel overnight. On the ticket there was a note : Railways charges only 57% of actual ticket fare. So ticket fare was Rs. 4912 and I am assuming that's break-even. For a family of 4, its Rs. 19,649. Car now sounds better and cheaper, a diesel car over a longer journey will give more efficiency than 13-14 I think. But bigger question is who is bearing the cost of low railway AC fares ? In case of car the maintenance is from owner, roads are tolled. In railways ? To cover up the deficit in passenger trains, freight rates via railways would increase. Partially this is reflected in percentage of freight movement by road despite not so nice road infrastructure; and its well proved that freight transit over longer distances are best done by rail. It would be a nice comparison when we have fares of passenger trains increased with a profit margin. This will also allow for lower freight rate via rail.

My view is simple : we never developed railways or roads the way we should have. It was never priority. Forget this, we didn't invest anywhere with a vision of future, except for Defense. Technology has made inroads, no doubt, particularly in healthcare, but lack of vision and foresight is evident. If passenger routes are not making profit, no point in running them IMO. India needs mix of both, railways and roadways, but must be planned given the rush we have.

[Raghu M]

I think there is point missing. Railways are not only the lifeline for some cities, they are responsible for keeping the supply chain system of the country up and running. They provide goods to every nook and corner of the country. Compare it with US that has huge trucks and trains doing the same duty. In a country like ours, it wouldn't have been possible to build so many freeways and maintain them for huge trucks. Railways was always a better option.

[KaurDiCar]

Well highways would be the answer if every person in this country had at least a Nano at their disposal but sadly that's not the case, we have a population of 1.3 billion people, and most of them are below the poverty line. For whom owning any kind of vehicle is a far and distant dream.

The railways solve a far greater purpose that just Shatabdi or Duronto, there are trains which help take people into the interior most towns of the country sometimes at less than the price of a movie ticket which is commendable.
The highway network is improving gradually in India but railways will remain an integral part of the economy.

[aashishnb]

Originally Posted by Marauder

Did we really choose Railways in the 1950s, though? A vast majority of the rail network was developed by the British, before independence.

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

- Our railway network is basically what was left by the British. Over so many decades, we had only made incremental improvements.

Originally Posted by Miyata

Just after independence, I think we had no other appealing options but to carry on the good work done on the rail-network by the British.

We have largely seen 'modernization' but not as much expansion...Incremental and ornamental? Yes; Breathtaking? Don't hold your breath!

I would like to add some nuanced thoughts to this:
1. The Brits never 'gave' / 'left' the railways for us. They were more like contractors and also customers. At the time of independence, there were 42 different railways of which 32 were owned by princely states / kingdoms. All of these were nationalized in 1951. It was largely built by private enterprises, the biggest customers were of course the British (for their war effort, industry, etc.). Nobody did anyone favours.

Hypothetically, if the Brits would not have brought railways here, the princely states / kingdoms could've anyways got it themselves, just like they bought a Rolls Royce!!

2. The route km at independence was 66k route km. Let us assume 1/3rd (actual may be 40%) went to Pakistan and Bangladesh at partition, so the rest of India was left with approx. 44k route km. We are now at 64k km, so we added approx. 20k route km. Unlike roads, where new roads can be built afresh (eg Mumbai Pune Expressway completely different from the old Mumbai Pune Highway), with Railways, it is a lot more difficult considering the need for other infra like stations, access to carsheds, etc.

3. Most important, while the route km may have increased by less than half from 44k to 64k, the actual capacity has increased exponentially. Let me give a few examples that I have seen:
i. In Mumbai itself, I've seen the suburban network going from 4 lanes/lines to 6 lines, with 2 dedicated to long distance trains (earlier sharing with the local/suburban train network). The harbour line has been continuously extended to reach further. Navi Mumbai rail network for most part has gone from 2 lines to 4 lines. The route km still remains the same.
ii. Across the country, many lines which were 'single line' earlier have been converted into 'double line' - 1 Up and 1 Down and some even 'four lines'. On a 'single line' trains going both ways used the same lane/line and we had 'crossing' at stations in between. A lot of people who have travelled in trains in their childhood would remember the 'crossings' at stations where trains would stop for 10-30 minutes till the other train arrived & passed.
iii. Also, a lot more capacity has been added to the same trains. Local trains have gone from 9-coach to 12-coach and some to 15-coach. A few long distance trains I know have gone from about 15 coaches in all to 24 coaches. Even frieght trains have become bigger/longer.


However, we do have a lot of way to go in modernization & improving the network. Given the size of the organization and therefore the 'inertia', the change will be slow.

[maddy42]

Till the 1990s we had two options for automobile - Fiat and Ambassador. Both had a waiting list. Same time we had two scooters - Bajaj and Vespa.

I have chosen railways but this poll is not a black and white decision. Not everyone can own a car and now even the people who can afford it are not buying cars. Uber and Ola and now the covid scenario is forcing people to rethink their decisions.

India missed out on one priority item. Expand the railway network by investing in infrastructure. But we put our cart before our horses and introduced additional trains while the carrying capacity of the tracks was not given focus on. While a particular rail minister ensured all trains go through her state too.

Personally we need both good highways and great railways for this country of 1.3 billion with no resource for oil and gas within its borders. Transportation decisions should be made keeping the ease of travel in mind by having multimodal facilities where a person can jump from a train to a bus easily or go from a long distance to a local train easily with no hassle.

We need to stop copying a solution which may have worked in america or china and replicate the same model but need to understand the local scenario before designing and implementing the same.

Lastly US has a lot of Gas and is a net exporter. They have long commutes and a sprawl situation where majority live in suburbia. Plus the GM_MAC_Firestone lobby ensured that public transport is marginalised and ineffective. Thats why they chose highways and roadways.

We still have many people living on less than 5 dollars a day. Keep that in mind while making a decision.

Maddy

[AirbusCapt]

We need to understand holistically what railways will mean for India. Everyone seems to talk about moving passengers, IMO that's the wrong path to take. We shouldn't be connecting every tom dick and harry village to Mumbai and Delhi. This only encourages mass migration, poverty, slums and crime. Railways must only connect major towns and cities for passenger traffic. The villages should be in turn connected to district headquarters, large towns via high quality roads and a reliable bus service.
The idea should be of a cluster based development, where in a citizen from a small village doesn't feel the need to go to Mumbai or Kolkata to earn. He must be able to find livelihood within 100 kms of his birthplace.
Also we must get rid of the 2nd world war general carriages and replace all coaches with modern trainsets which are fully air-conditioned, have sliding doors and are capable of atleast operating at 200 kmph.
We should also optimise our routes, remove small wayside stations which are mainly politically made. With lesser stops, better trains and higher ticket costs we must ensure that our railways are a cost benefit alternative to our airlines.
If we holistically develop our railways, we should see most district headquarters becoming major industrial hubs, with enough work for all.