[S15]

First and foremost, my idea of this thread comes from this video that I was watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaf6baEu0_w

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.
For east-coast to west-coast, there are plenty of flights to be taken, which they can afford to, since they're quite a rich country.

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.

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.
The wake vortex (sorry to borrow an aviation term) will be so large, that it will literally suck a few people hanging from the doors of the EMU.

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?

PS: Absolutely loved reading all of your insights in my last thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ce-decade.html (Auto industry is a 'vast stagnant market' - India is stuck at 250000 cars / month since a decade) ), and hope will learn a lot more from this one as well.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by S15

So the question is, did we make the right decision?

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

China is a good example of how the rail system can be implemented. China alone has more than 50% of the world's high speed rail network.

[Marauder]

Originally Posted by S15

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.

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

After independence, we may have prioritized the Rail network but I guess there was no other choice at the time. India was a poor country which had just gained independence where car penetration was next to negligible. It makes sense that the Railways was given priority since the infrastructure had already been developed and it was cheaper for the common man of the country to travel by train.

The issue is that the infrastructure hasn't kept up with the times, be it the rail network or the road infrastructure. The infrastructure in the country has developed at snail's pace and that probably makes it seem like a poor choice.

[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.

- Europe and China are both shining examples of how roadways and railways can coexist and complement each other. High speed rail can be cheaper and faster and roads if implemented properly.

- Our railway network is basically what was left by the British. Over so many decades, we had only made incremental improvements. Yet, railways ferries bulk of passenger and heavy goods movement. It is only now that the network is being updated with better technology, new lines and dedicated corridors. In contrast, investment going into highways has been much more

- There is no beating the cost of freight transport by rail. Freight % by road has leapt forward only due to the inefficiencies and delays in the railway system. This gap is being filled quickly. Many car majors now prefer shipping their cars on dedicated trains. Earlier it was mostly by road.

- Transportation by train is cheaper. It is safer. It is also the more eco friendly option. Greta Thunberg agrees.

- The speed of modern high speed trains cannot be matched by cars, at least not without breaking the law. Once high speed railways around major cities are developed, a lot of road passenger traffic can shift. Ultimately, people will prefer whatever is more convenient and value for money.

[reppy]

In a country with the low GDP per capita and the high (highest?) population density that we have, transporting crores of people on a daily basis requires low cost mass transit systems. We should be thanking our stars (and the British?) for the existing rail network.

The upcoming and growing road/highways network will beautifully compliment this legacy rail system as consumer spending increases for automobiles.

[torquecurve]

I am typing on my phone, so saying sorry for any errors in advance.

Honestly, a good decision to go with railways as against roads/highways. Let me put in a brief explanation and details will put later.

Railways - are inherently more efficient per km/ kg than an equivalent vehicle. Example - at 72 people per carriage a 26 carriage rake can move - 1872 people with their luggage from Pune to Mumbai (example) that’s about 150 kms At 6 liters per km - 900 litres od diesel. If 1872 people took cars / each car carrying 4 people - 468 cars, let’s say each car has FE of 15, that’s 10 litres per car - 4680 litres of fuel. If I consider the WDM3 series at about 12 lpk - it still
Is way less than the fuel cost. And that’s just fuel. Of course there are additional costs of signalling and infrastructure - but it is the same for roads.

The primary reason why our trains move slower than the world is traffic on the routes. Like you mentioned the same tracks run passénger trains (express, mail, slow passengers, EMU, the works) and Goods trains. The challenges of acceleration, top speed and gaps is there. It’s like the expressway ghats (mum-pune) where trucks hog all lanes and a BMW or Celerio both have the same effective top speed. Also the railways earns more per kg from freight transport than passenger transport.

This is the reason why the current government is heavily investing into the DFC ( Dedicated Freight Corridors). Freight trains will run at 100kph on these and make longer runs (without needing to wait On sidings for passenger trains to clear). What that also does is free up the tracks for passenger trains which can now clear quicker and average about 120-130 kph with top speeds pegged at 150-60 kph. The overall network speed increases substantially.

Now about HSR - High speed rail. The key challenge of high speed rail is ‘separate’ networks that don’t have intrusions of any sort on the tracks. This means you either elevate the tracks or put them underground or barricade it out completely. Also. HSR doesn’t run freight service as the axle loads differ, they have to run straighter with gentle curves. It’s the same as how on the expressway your average speed is higher than the other parts of NH4 primary because it is ‘access controlled’. Only to move people HSR is expensive, yes cheaper than flying - but high initial costs. In fact India’s first HSR - Ahmedabad Mumbai will cost more than the EFC Which is almost four times the length.

And we must stop giving accolades to the British for our railways. They made the railways to move material from the hinterlands to the ports - and nothing more. It was after independence that we invested into this and kept improving the network. From the venerable steam engines - to being a fully diesel network (bar a few very minor routes) we took less than 2 decades, now we are moving towards full electrification (full is typically 85%) with some not feasible for electrification or other challenges.

About railways not working in a vast / diverse country - actually railways are more efficient the longer distances they cover. One major reason for congestion is local movement of passengers in day time - this is being shifted gradually to ‘light rails - metros’ in the city and to DEMU/MEMU types for intracity routes. Emus are ‘faster’ and more efficiwnt on shorter routes due to better acceleration and higher load per carriage. (12 carriage rakes have capacity of almost 2400 people). Top speed is typically 100kph (ICF old), 110 kph (ICF new). These are used in day time only when the long distance passenger train load is lower.
This will increase the efficiency even more. While the roads in the US are good - for most part, what you also need to factor is population density - 36/sq km in the US compared to 362/ sq km in India. Imagine 10 time’s more cars, in a highly populated country like India - the Noida Toll booth is probably the best example of what would happen...

[Rajeevraj]

Considering the population, density and size of the country, rail based transportation was definitely the way to go. Even today, although the expansion in road infra is welcome, it would be impossible to improve the country's mobility with road infra. Reliable, efficient rail based systems, both inter and intra city is what the country has always needed, but progress has been slow. We still don't have modern High speed rail systems, track doubling, quadrapling has been slow and our intra city rail systems ( apart from a couple of cities) has been non existent ( Bangalore being a prime example). Most major cities are only now slowly getting a metro rail system.

So, yes rail based systems was/is the way to go, but I don't think we have full on ever committed to it. I am sure there maybe reasons for it, but just commenting as a layman.

[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.

[aargee]

If we look at history, US enjoyed the early success on railroad primarily just like Britain's success on railroad; and later years, on a small island Japan's success. Or may be an entire continent of EU adopting & adapting to railroad. While this was going on, India wasn't left behind either, we had our railroads even before first war of independence in 1857!! Guess what? China & Japan started atleast 2 decades after us & they're now levitating their trains

On the other hand, we're still contemplating whether to develop rail or road...in 2021!! That's sets the indigestible reality of where we stand today!!

IMHO, we either have to wait or start adopting a newer technology like flying cars, self driving vehicles or some other emerging technology for mass commuting. I think we clearly lost an opportunity.

Originally Posted by S15

And they chose road infrastructure.

And guess what fueled to choose roads? Automobile lobby!!

PS - 2 weekends ago Daughter & I had to take a 2nd sleeper to Trivandrum; the toilet was terribly stinking; I remember it was ghastly terribly stinking when I was at the age of my Daughter

[Nilesh5417]

The right path for us is a well thought out combination of the two. So chose not to vote.

For long distances, the trains are more affordable, enjoyable, can carry much higher payloads and more importantly safer! Hopefully more environment friendly post the electrification. But like already pointed out, they aren't so efficient and / or economical when it comes to routes with low traffic density or difficult terrains or simply to reach every nook and corner like the roads can.

And the above applies not just to passenger traffic but also to movement of goods. Probably when it comes to movement of goods, trains are also more predictable (mishaps, government red tape across states etc).

A 3rd option would probably help capture the missing dimension.

[aaggoswami]

It cant be binary option in my view. High population density = railways. Low population density = roads. Europe, Japan have high population density and they smartly laid out railways and public transport that is helping them, their decision didn't turn out to be wrong.

USA followed roads, as it had two advantages : lower maintenance of railways where population was less with adverse weather and automotive industry gave massive employment. Automotive industry was one of crucial parameters for economic development of USA and the development of associated infrastructure further gave boost to employment.

India : we missed the development of both, railways and roads. Railways, on the face of it, seems awesome with good connectivity and sheer vastness of tracks. One of the largest in the world, and carries more people in a day than an entire population of some small nation probably. But dig deeper and we see the shortfalls. Average speeds of even "Super Fast" trains are low, trains end up waiting at yards for platform berths to be empty, overloaded tracks with lots of trains, and overall the infrastructure is overwhelmed by sheer huge population. Simply put, its not enough and definitely very slow. Passengers, i.e. humans need to move faster, this is crucial for economic development. Something USA realized early on and hence the reason why they have so many flights, the aviation connectivity of USA is nice for this reason. Europe gets high speed trains running at most places due to the fact that it has denser population than USA, USA is too big to everytime drive from point A to point B.

Roads : Enough said and discussed all over this forum, and every nook and corner of Indian media. We are lagging behind, probably will never catch up with developed nations for road infrastructure. Lack of discipline, lax laws or their poor implementation add to chaos like there's no tomorrow. Average speeds on Indian highways is just terrible, its 2021 but average speeds haven't shot up significantly. Pan India connectivity with access restricted highways should have been in place a decade ago. This would have given boost to tourism and overall development. USA developed after it started building infrastructure. China followed the same may be 40 years after USA with immense success.

Railroad for freight : Nothing beats USA here. Their freight trains with double stacked containers do 60-70 MPH, I guess highest speed for those trains is 70 or 75 MPH. Massive freight trains transport cargo in cost effective manner. Smart choice.

USA Model : Faster movement of humans, preferred method is air or road. Freight movement = trains. What USA lost in over-confidence or got complacent is development of high speed railways over East and West coast. California needs high speed railway, so does the east coast. High speed connectivity from east to west coast is not feasible due to high costs and relatively lower population between these two coasts. Similar question that's highly debated for USA railways is electrification. GE doesn't make electric locos for long, not sure if it changed or not. Electrification of railways in central USA is not easy, neither is maintaining the same. I think diesel works well.

Europe, Japan, China : High speed railways work well, roads developed too, but railways inter and intra city are good so passengers from a wider economic spectrum use railways. China is beyond imagination as it has largest high speed network in the world and many routes are making profit. Electrification is beneficial.

India : Dedicated Freight corridor could be game changer, but how it works out in reality needs to be seen. A boost definitely. Problem is last mile connectivity, very harsh weather, poor planning, high population. Electrification of railways is beneficial just like Europe/China/Japan.

India didn't make a wrong choice, as it just didn't make a choice at all, and this was coupled with wrong policies.

[Dieseltuned]

A country which moves in masses and an average indian earning wages way lower than minimum wage of a developed nation, our country needed a mass transport system which could enable movement of people and goods at an affordable rate. The low costs subsidised by the government enables the poorest of the poor to travel to far away lands and seek employment.

[rbabar]

It has to be a balanced combination of rail and roads. For now the time to travel via train and via road does not have a large gap, although cost does. What british started with rails require a high level of revamp to bring in high speed travel covering tier 3 cities which currently are not developing because of lack of quick connectivity (if flights are not an option).
Road network has its own contribution as an alternative where reaching via trains isn't an option. Recently I was in Himachal, where I could see focus on improving road connectivity in mountain terrain, where laying rails is a more challenging task.

[veedub89]

Neither.
We messed up both. We don't have high speed rail and we don't have high speed expressways. The latter because some babu can't understand that high speed doesn't kill, rash driving does.

The Indian Railways might have staggering reach but is hopelessly unreliable and devoid of many comforts. Railway food anyone? The safety on a train is sketchy at best.

The road network is again under-developed and whatever is developed needs to be maintained. The construction of roads is plagued with corruption and L1 tender mentality effectively ensuring we end up with a shoddy road with zero planning to ensure safety.

The problem lies with how these two things are developed.
New government brings new policies and implements different things. There is no cohesion from one term to the other.

[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. At the moment, we are the fourth largest rail-network in the world! The entire rail network is likely to be electrified by 2022. We have largely seen 'modernization' but not as much expansion...Incremental and ornamental? Yes; Breathtaking? Don't hold your breath!

Few points further (by way of quoting them):

>Successive governments managed to lay only around 10,000 km of new tracks – at the approximate rate of 160 km a year; Annual rate of 600 km had been achieved during the British [Source]

>British rulers had ensured that all the five hill railways in the country became operational by 1930, Independent India has been struggling to complete construction work on the Kashmir rail link for the last 69 years. [Source - same as above]

For now though, I don't see why both the networks (road and rail) cannot simultaneously be developed at a rapid pace - Infrastructure is needed; The job growth is much needed; What seems to be the holdup except for lack of will?