[sen2693]

- It would be very unfair to compare with USA and what they implemented in the first place. Their land mass is almost 3X of India and travelling by railroad would just consume so much time for long distance travels. (For comparison, Delhi to Chennai, which should cover the 75% of North and South endpoints of India takes only 28 hours by a Duronto).

- People I believe have much more driving etiquettes than here, hence high powered cars and high speed highways are not much of a concern there. This also cuts the travel time for them by road. Here you build 1 expressway and hear about accidents on that every other day.

- For railways cost of travel is partly covered by the government. Hence, cheaper for the citizens of this country. Travelling by buses are much costlier forget by cabs/personal cars.

- US produces it's own fuel and price is much cheaper. Here, ahem..... That increases the cost of travel again which many people of this country cannot afford.

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

- The US railway system was deliberately not developed. This was in a large part due to the auto lobby which carries an enormous clout. Attempts were made, they were shut down.

There is a Hasan Minaj's Patriot Act episode (released in 2019 or 2020) talking about how the public transport infrastructure is lobbied into underdevelopment, not just the railway system.

[interest]

Originally Posted by mh09ad5578

I always wondered why India didn't have the 200 kmph passenger trains that run in Western Europe. Just imagine 400kms away places at just 2 hours distance. This could effectively decentralize the metros and allow lot of small towns to develop into business hubs about 200 to 400 kms away from Metros. Imagine cheap fast travel within a state. The stuff dreams are made of. As said earlier we have hardly had any development these past 70 years.
Sorry to say but India lacks visionary leadership and not just now, it's always been the case.

This is indeed the plan with bullet train- to make towns at 50-60 or even 100kms away from city center accessible. Imagine with Ahmedabad Mumbai bullet train, virar, boisar and vapi will become easily accessible. The flip side, however is that the real estate lobby which has invested massively in land in Mumbai will not be able to earn profits. The existing land prices will also stop appreciating by much. They will be opposed to it. I have heard several speculations that the Sewri-Nhava Sheva sea Link could not take off for decades as it would affect real estate prices in south mumbai. Lets hope that it is better late than never and the mumbai bullet train does complete.

[libranof1987]

While I have absolutely no knowledge on this topic, I do agree with the point below. If we, in the very least, built the roads we have built so far well, or at least sincerely, we'd do far better.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Be it roadways or rail, dont think it is the system - but our implementation that deserves the blame.

I also think it isn't a simple question of what medium of transportation should have been prioritized. From what I've read about the US transportation history, it was the oil lobby that ensured that roads and air travel were given priority over rail. I'd imagine it had to do a lot with politics and lobbying by various vested interests that things panned out the way they did there.

[jigar1791@gmail]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

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

India can never dispose off the non-AC compartments/accommodation in their trains.

A major chunk of India's rural and semi-urban society depends on Railways for their daily travel to and from their base to a metro, be it work or personal.
A lot of these intercity and passenger trains (with travel distances <500 kms) are unreserved, 2S (second sitting) and non AC Chair Car compartments.

Also, for reserved superfast/mail-express trains, SL (Sleeper Class) still forms a majority percentage of seats available. A typical 24 coach Indian superfast train will have 14-15 non AC SL coaches (carrying capacity of 72-81 berths each of about 1000 odd SL seats), 5-6 AC (mix of 2&3 AC, carrying capacity of about 400) and 2-3 unreserved coaches.
Out of total accommodation of 1700 pax, ~60% travels in SL, ~25% travel in AC and the rest forms unreserved group.

Non-AC accommodation in India is here to stay, and shall form a dominant %age of seat availability on any route you consider.

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

If we look back in the 18th-19th century when development of Railways was gathering pace the world over, there were not many motorised road mass-movers available (today's buses or trucks). This factor as well further favoured Railways' development, be it in India or anywhere in the world. Coal, Iron Ore, Steel and Wood were transported through vast lengths in Europe, India etc at relatively quick speeds and with comparatively better safety measures of that time.

W.r.to India, yes, the British did the right thing by setting up Railways, and if we see it now, this is, perhaps, the best decision benefitting India. Just that, post independence, it's our incompetence or lack of political will/social obligation perspective that we left Railways to remain stagnant or see very little development ever since independence.

Regards,
Jigar Shah

[maddy42]

Originally Posted by interest

This is indeed the plan with bullet train- to make towns at 50-60 or even 100kms away from city center accessible. Imagine with Ahmedabad Mumbai bullet train, virar, boisar and vapi will become easily accessible. I have heard several speculations that the Sewri-Nhava Sheva sea Link could not take off for decades as it would affect real estate prices in south mumbai. Lets hope that it is better late than never and the mumbai bullet train does complete.

Have heard the same with regards to the konkan railway and also the Mlr-Blr train route - Bus lobby did not want it to happen.

Adding another point - Average speed of trains are below 50kmph. Goods trains are not even provided a time table to arrive at its destination while its the major source of revenue for the railways. Mumbai - Blr takes 24 hours by train and 15 hours by Volvo.

If you want to be a minister who is never disturbed by protests, do nothing.

Maddy

[Nithesh_M]

It takes me a little over 4 hours to travel between Mangalore and Bangalore on a single cylinder 250cc motorcycle on a low traffic weekday. Over 5 hours on a heavy traffic day weekend.
Distance being a constant 386 kms.

The same route by train takes you 11 hours. What is weird though is 4 hours is roughly the same time it takes one to leave my home to airport+waiting lounge+boarding+flying+deboard+exit airport+ cab to reach same destination point.

I have this weird condition where I cannot sit still without working my hands and feet for more than an hour at a stretch. So 11 hour train journey is not an option. Waiting at airport lounges are bad enough. So I'd pick roadways in a manual car to keep my hands and legs occupied.

[coolmel]

Had the empire not been hungry, we would have never had the railways. And the rest is history. I would say we need both in equal measure. Eager to see & ride a few bullet trains in India in my lifetime. And drive to the north & back in 3 days time. I am happy we took the Brits legacy forward.

[charanreddy]

Given the demographics of our country with rural areas and low income group account for a lion's share, it is impossible to survive without a well developed railway network. Air travel is too expensive and 'elite'. Not every one owns a car or can afford one.

In my view, the railways are to India as blood vessels are to human body. While I was a student, I used to do Tirupati - New Delhi trips atleast 4 times a year, mostly in sleeper / third AC. Also for real med-long distance travel, you cant beat the comfort of the railways. Busses are inherently incomfortable and more risky. We definitely need better highways, but that cant be an alternative for good rail connectivity.

[Stribog]

I see a lot of misinformation in this thread.

1) no, the railways is not the main carrier of freight or people. Road networks carry 85% of our passenger volume and 70%(till 2015) of our freight volume. This dynamic is only now shifting towards the railways. It is now down to 68% of freight with aggressive plans to reach 50% by 2030.

2) the US model is Not one we should be emulating. Multi modal mix is how infra is planned.

3) the reason our road and rail networks pale in comparison to China is 3 fold,

A) we don't have eminent domain laws, this leads to Orwellian levels farce when it comes to land acquisition. For instance there is a suburban rail project in Chennai stuck in limbo for 12 years, because the last 300 meters of land is stuck in legal limbo.

B) gross inefficiency - yes, this is a big factor. Many key rail and road projects have been stuck in administrative limbo for years, decades even (like the DFC) but this is also linked to A because controversial land acquisition like in Nandigram is a political hot potato so govts have in the past announced schemes and projects. Then sat and did nothing.

C) lack of funding - only as our economy scales up, is more resources being dedicated to these aspects of our infra. Starting 2015 though we have been in the midst of the greatest infra addition (by volume) in our history and outside of the US and China, one of the largest in modern history.

As to what should be the right model, it has to be multi modal.

Freight moves via rail from production nodes to ports directly (the DFC and EFC will do just this), every major production abs manufacturing hub should have a rail head. Passenger traffic upto 500 kms or so should use road, upto 1,000 kms Rail and beyond Air. Even in rail 500-750 kms should have a HSR complement.

One criminally ignored aspect is water movement, esp in the rivers of the North is riverine freight transport and coastal freight movement by sea. This for instance had insanely complicated cabotage laws that were amended only in 2017 iirc. So cargo from TN to Guj for instance (a lot of cars for ex) should move by sea. Something just not possible till the cabotage law was amended.

Our NIP policy paper is a good plan, even if we manage 50% of it, the way we commute, freight is moved will change in revolutionary ways

[H0RSEPOWER]

Definitely railways!
For the fuel cost perspective, even if a train is being run by diesel, the per head fuel cost for a person travelling in a 5 seater car(considering all seats are occupied), is 4 times more than an express train. And the fuel savings in railways is even more if we consider the unreserved train compartments!

The speed for normal express trains(not even considering high speed rail), can easily reach 130 kmph, which is more than highest speed limit in best of the expressways in country. And if we consider other highways, state owned highways, other rural roads, the rail speed is even more higher.

The journey in the express sleeper coaches is definitely more comfortable and safer than any road journey. And due to the the horrible road manners that we frequently experience in India, the chances & number of accidents on road is quite higher than that of rail accidents.

If we look into the per head car penetration, it is about 2 cars per 100 people in India, whereas it is almost 100 cars per 100 people, hence personal vehicle as a mode of transport is limited to very very few people in India.

Now if we consider from environmental viewpoint, still now we are at a nascent phase of electric vehicles, but railway electrification is way ahead of that.

And very importantly, in a country with majority of the families depending upon 4 digit monthly salary, nothing can beat the cost effectiveness of rail journeys. In suburban trains, a 100 km journey in a local EMU costs only 25 rupees per person. It is definitely better option for the not so privileged ones, who form the lion share part of the society.

Definitely a lot of improvement is required on the infrastructure, but if we consider which one to pick for as a nationwide transport system for the mass in India, railways surely is more advantageous in numerous ways.

[Bhalla]

Railways because we are highly densely populated country and if we look at other highly densely nations like Japan, Great Britain, European Countries, China, they all focused on developing Railway System and they all are successful in this. Switzerland, Austria, Japan, France, China have best rail network and railways are the backbone of their transport systems.
Low densely nations like USA, Russia, New Zealand, Canada, Australia focused on Road and Air Networks and succeeded in doing so. All the small and major cities, villages are well connected with each by road network (excluding extreme Northern areas like Nunavut, Yukon, Northwest Territories but they are well connected with Air Network).
So by taking the above examples, focus must be on Development of Railway Network rather than on Road or Air Networks when it comes to India.

[mmxylorider]

India is a very different case study. A brand new nation, ruled and exploited of wealth for good many centuries, big in area and low in technology and skilled tech people. The choice to go railways was a default since money could be spent elsewhere for developing the nation. Not a lot of options for personal vehicles and vehicle reliability meant trains carried bulk of the freight.
Personally, we should have started focusing on roads in the 70s when it would have been easy to block land for these projects and improve them as time went by.
Today, there is money and talent and will but land acquisition and other clearances are the new hurdles towards progress. On one hand we are building the CHenad bridge on the USBRL and struggle to have a decent solution to choke points in multiple cities.

The greenfield expressways being built are the way to go.

[IP_Man]

It was absolutely correct decision of India, rather British has taken. Indian railway is considered as 'blood-line' of India. If it stops, India stops.

USA, adamantly decided not to develop rail network. What is situation in USA today? Overcrowded airports and traffic congested highways. Because of this, perhaps USA is largest consumer of petroleum resources and second largest producer of green house gas pollutant i.e. CO2.

[smooth indian]

I selected railways in the poll. However, the framing of the question or rather the choices is disingenuous. Its not like India only had a binary choice. We could have or should have invested in both. The decision makers somehow allowed the priorities to be lopsided and ignored the possibility of private investment in our transport infrastructure until thing became desperate.
Ideally, we should have expanded the national highway network to around 100000 km by the mid 1990s. And our railway network should also have reached a similar length by now along with widespread electrification and doubling/tripling/quadrupling.
We should have started with dual carriage/access controlled highways and expressways by the late 1970s and high impact railways projects such as dedicated freight corridors and preliminary high speed/semi high speed railway lines should have taken off by the turn of the 21st century.
It must be noted that the US doesn't have a bad railway network. In fact in terms of route kms its length is several times that of India. Its just that it is geared more towards freight trains than passenger trains. Pretty much any country with a good passenger rail network also has a good enough road network.

[smooth indian]

Originally Posted by coolmel

Had the empire not been hungry, we would have never had the railways. And the rest is history.

Countries have built railways without the need for a colonizer. India would have had railways either way; just that the way railways developed would have been different without the british. And this is coming from a admirer of british trains.

Originally Posted by jigar1791@gmail

Just that, post independence, it's our incompetence or lack of political will/social obligation perspective that we left Railways to remain stagnant or see very little development ever since independence.

Your point about neglect is partly valid. However, India inherited a network fragmented in terms of gauge and primarily single line non electrified railway lines (95%). We have had to regauge close to 2/3rd of the railway network over the decade and now have electrified around half the network. So a lot of money was really spend in just bringing the network into the 20th century. India should have done more to expand its railway network which is still at around 65000-70000 route km. Suburban and Interurban railways have also not been upgraded or expanded enough to meet the needs of as rapidly increasing population.