Imagine Bhubaneswar-Kolkata in less than 2 hours,and not by flying! Also at fraction of an air ticket's cost. The answer is high speed rail. For all skeptics - Europe,Japan and China have trains averaging 200-250 kmph atleast. Our grand old Indian Railways,which is by the way is one of the largest rail networks serving 30 million passengers per day, is ages behind with most express trains having a meager average of 55 kmph. Ironically some have a suffix 'Superfast' and there's a fee chargeable for that too. In fact the fastest train, Bhopal Shatabdi has an average speed of 93 kmph which too is less considering high speed rail definitions. On a different part of the world, a modified train of TGV(France) has world record top speeds in excess of 574.8 kmph. Commercially, China's Maglev clocks 431 kmph in every run. There is good news for us - The idea of High speed rails which was conceived in the last century, is no more a distant reality. Six routes have been approved by the planning commission and a few more have been proposed. In the recent budget unveiling, sacked ex-railway minister Dinesh Tiwari announced that pre-feasibility studies on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna, Howrah-Haldia, Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijaywada-Chennai, Pune-Mumbai-Hyderabad and the Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Ernakulam high-speed corridors have already been completed and study on Delhi-Jaipur-Ajmer-Jodhpur route will be taken up in the next financial year. The technology will be similar to the Japanese Shinkasen and French,that is the trains will run on rails and not magnetically levitated like China.
Airlines have reason to fear most,they cannot remain 'King of good times' for all routes. High speed trains have speeds slower than airplanes but the process of checking in-out,reaching to and from the airports which are generally located outside the city, makes them very effective for routes lesser than approximately 650 km. That includes quite a part of India. Another advantage is cost - In China, a 2nd class high speed train ticket is roughly 25% of a flight ticket. The cost can be lowered here by clever packaging like the recent double decker coaches. As travel time is quite low in these trains,sleeper beds are not required and the air conditioning time is lowered too in comparison to traditional overnight trains. High speed trains are a lot more punctual and reliable than flights which always have a bad rapport with weather conditions. Safety is undoubtedly lower in air travel. Lack of complex security and navigation systems make trains much simpler and reliable. Air travel sickness is a deterrent to many too. Plus every city cant have an airport,but almost all can have cheaper train stations. This implies better connectivity and development of all regions. Further airplanes are not green. Apart from consuming huge amounts of petroleum,a huge part of their operating cost is wastage due to congestion, diversions due to bad weather. According to Eurostar, its London-Paris high speed train produces 90% less CO2 than a flight and also takes around 45 minutes less for a round trip. Unlike airplanes, trains can be powered by renewable energy and be 100% green.
To sum up, High speed trains are :
Greener
Faster (for routes < 650 km)
Safer
Cheaper
Punctual
Development of regions
Still there is a lot of work to be done. There are no existing tracks that can support speeds above 200 kmph. The tracks have to be raised above roads or be fenced throughout. High speed trains may not completely replace the traditional so called 'Superfast' ones. General and sleeper classes will still be cheaper. High speed trains cannot have non air conditoned coaches as they have to be air sealed due to aerodynamics. Airplanes will vanish from small routes like Bhubaneswar-Kolkata or Mumbai-Pune but they will operate long distances. Even so there will be many people who would not mind spending 15 hours from Jammu to Kanyakumari(The longest route in India which currently takes 71 hours) at a fraction of the cost. It would be safe to assume that high speed trains would begin with co-existance, leading to slow upgradation and certainly in a long long time,will dominate the entire Indian Railways network.
*TBD - To be Determined
Aerodynamic - Designed to offer the least resistance to fluid(air in this case) flow
