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Express trains in India

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Duronto service map; travel-time & speed[1]
Indian Railways Rajdhani/Shatabdi Lines[1]

The fastest train in India is the Bhopal Shatabdi, a Shatabdi Express train, with a maximum speed of 160 km/h (100 mph) and an average speed of 93 km/h (58 mph), excluding stops. The mumbai Rajdhani is the second fastest train. The Duronto Express trains introduced in 2009, runs without stop between major cities, is projected the fastest train in India, when new services are introduced with a higher speed limit of 130 km/h.[2] Despite limited to a much lower speed limit, it is as fast as a Rajdhani or Shatabdi on the same route (see Tracks and Speed sections). Rajdhani Express which connects New Delhi with other destinations in India was introduced in 1969, has speed up to 140 km/h. These trains are not comparable in speed to the Shinkansen of Japan (and running in Taiwan), TGV of France, InterCityExpress of Germany, the ETR 500 of Italy, the KTX of South Korea, AVE of Spain, the Wuhan-Guangzhou_High-Speed_Railway trains in China, or the HS 1 of the UK (although the Acela Express of the US is classified there as high speed, its average running speed is too low to be truly called high speed.)

Competition

Like elsewhere, railways in India compete with air travel and road transport. The advantages of travelling by air between cities are the greater frequency of flights, and shorter travel time. Rail travel, with few exceptions, offers lower cost.

Rail transport also faces competition from the use of roads improved under National Highways Development Project. People owning cars can, for short distances, benefit in terms of shorter travel time, given the lack of commute to and fro a railway station at both ends of a journey. This is also balanced against the need to maintain one's vehicle and its security during such trips.


Tracks

Duronto, Shatabdi, and Rajdhani trains run on Indian broad-gauge which is 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm). These tracks are multi-purpose supporting all passenger and freight traffic, and are not made exclusively for lighter load fast-express passenger trains. The Rajdhani and Shatabdi adhere to a speed limit of 130 km/h, and the Duronto is limited to 110 km/h.[3][4] They run on tracks with classifications Group A, permitting speed up to 160 km/h, and Group B for speed up to 130 km/h. Lower speed limits apply when they are on tracks or railway switches, which have lower speed limits. The design of the railway switches, with a speed limit of 15-75 km/h, is the major bottleneck to higher speed.[5] Another constraint is the need to accommodate freight trains at the current top speed of 70 km/h.[3] These constraints to speed are consequences of sharing tracks with freight and lower speed suburban passenger trains. But currently, as of 2010, a separate freight corridor construction work is in progress with land acquisitions and other hurdles being slowly overcome.

Locomotives

Duronto, Shatabdi, and Rajdhani trains are hauled by powerful electric locomotives built by the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, such as WAP-4, WAP-5, or WAP-7, each with an output of more than 5,000 hp. WAP-5 design originated from Bombardier-Adtranz-ABB, and it is capable of pulling trains to speed of 200 km/h without modification.[6][7] WAP-7 is more powerful, and can haul longer trains, to a speed of 140 km/h.[7][8].

Coaches

The coaches in these trains are of crash-worthy design from Alstom-LHB, built by Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala.[9][10] These Alstom-LHB coaches can be pulled to a speed of 200 km/h without any modification.[11] New fast-express coaches are made partly or completely of stainless steel, primarily motivated by lower maintenance, and higher availability. Stainless steel construction also reduces empty weight, enabling more passengers per coach.[12] The bogies, design from Fiat, has 2 disk brakes per axle[11]essential for safe operations especially at the speed of fast-express trains.

Speed

The average speed of fast trains range from 59 to 93 km/h. Of 80 routes (each direction counting as one route) in the Indian Railways schedule, 21 are 80 km/h or faster, 16 are below 70 km/h, remaining 43 have an average speed between 70 and 80 km/h.

The speed of express trains is calculated from Indian Railways schedule.[1]

Train Source, Destination Number
of Stops 		Total
stop time,
h:m 		Distance,
km 		Total
time,
h:m 		Speed
excluding
stop time,
km/h (mph) 		Remarks
12002 Bhopal Shatabdi New Delhi, Bhopal 5 0:18 701 7:50 93.1 (58.1) Fastest shatabdi and fastest train in india
12259 Sealdah Duronto Sealdah, New Delhi non-stop - 1454 16:20 89.0 (55.6) Fastest Duronto
12951 Mumbai Rajdhani Mumbai Central, New Delhi 4 0:32 1384 15:50 90.5 (56.5) Fastest Rajdhani Express
12133 Mangalore Express Mumbai CST, Mangalore Junction 12 0:36 1195 14:10 84.0 (52.1) Fastest Express train
12909 Nizamuddin-Bandra Garib Rath Hazrat Nizamuddin,Mumbai Bandra Terminus 7 0:33 1366 15:40 92.6.3(57) Fastest Garib Rath
12431 Trivandrum Rajdhani Trivandrum Central, H Nizamuddin 15 1:21 3149 41:25 78.6 (49.1) Longest Rajdhani Express
12030 Swarna Shatabdi Amritsar Junction, New Delhi 5 0:11 448 6:05 75.9 (47.5) Northern regional express
12028 Shatabdi Express Bangalore City, Chennai Central 2 0:04 362 5:00 73.4 (45.9) Southern regional express
12267 Ahmedabad Duronto Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad Junction non-stop - 491 6:45 72.7 (45.5) Western regional express
12019 Shatabdi Express Howrah Junction, Ranchi 7 0:19 423 7:05 62.5 (39.1) Eastern regional express
12436 Dibrugarh Rajdhani New Delhi, Dibrugarh Town 21 3:16 2463 44:55 59.1 (37.0) Slowest. Also has most stops

Regular unbranded express trains on the same route are only slightly slower, since the same locomotives haul them.

Stops

Frequent stops reduce the average running speed of a train greatly by preventing it from gaining higher speed. Duronto, Shatabdi, and Rajdhani express trains have very few stops. The distance between stops is as short as 15 km between Chandrapura-Bokaro Steel City on the Howrah-Ranchi Shatabdi, and as long as 528 km between Vadodara-kota on the Trivandrum Rajdhani.[1] The non-stop service of Sealdah-New Delhi Duronto has three technical stops, for change of staff, loading of food and other reasons, at Dhanbad, Mughal Sarai, and Kanpur Central.[13]

  1. ^ a b c d Indian Railways Passenger Reservation Enquiry
  2. ^ Duronto Express::Passenger Services - November 2009, ICRTC Online Passenger Reservation Information
  3. ^ a b Indian Railways 2020 Vision - Government of India Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) December, 2009
  4. ^ Kolkata to New Delhi in 16 hours - Duronto Express! - 19 September 2009, mynews.in
  5. ^ High Speed - T.R.Natarajan, Indian Railways
  6. ^ Locomotive, section WAP-5 - timetrackinfosys.com
  7. ^ a b Electric Locomotive, sections WAP-5/WAP-7 - Indian Railways FAQ:Locomotive
  8. ^ Chittaranjan Locomotive Works website
  9. ^ To make fast-express trains safe, new design of coach on anvil - indianexpress.com
  10. ^ Rlys may raise stainless steel coach production - BusinessLine
  11. ^ a b SYNOPSIS OF PAPERS PRESENTED IN SEMINAR ON ‘LHB COACH AND NEW MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES’ HELD AT RCF, KAPURTHALA ON 4TH AND 5TH NOVEMBER’ 2003
  12. ^ Stainless Steel in Rail Transportation - stainlesssteel.org
  13. ^ Duronto blazing new tracks - BusinessLine
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