India joined the global high-speed rail bandwagon today with the Konkan Railway’s Madgaon-Roha Express succesfully completing its trial run at a speed of 150 kmph that well surpasses Rajdhani’s 130 kmph. Earlier in the day, a crowd, including top Konkan Railway officials, cheered home the express train at Panvel railway station near Mumbai that had covered a distance of 442 kms in flat three-and-a-half hours. B. Rajaram Managing Director, Konkan Railways, could barely contain his enthusiasm on the occasion: ‘‘We are so happy and proud. I was personally present in the train that touched even 165 kmph at times.’’ He said that once the Ministry of Railways granted permission taking into account all safety considerations, the train will start commercial operations between the two destinations regularly. Once regularised, it would bring Goa much closer to Mumbai. Currently, Konkan Railway’s own Jan Shatabdi Express takes eight hours to reach Goa. ‘‘At a speed of 150 kmph, it will take only four hours to reach Madgaon from Panvel and six-and-a-half hours from Dadar,’’ informed Rajaram. Officials said that Konkan Railways’ tracks have been designed for a maximum speed of upto 160 kmph. Yet, the maximum ‘sectional speed’ on it is 120 kmph and, therefore, KR had take special measures for the trial run. These included manning of unmanned level crossings and cattle run-over locations and undertaking of awareness drills in villages next to the tracks. However, amidst all the euphoria in Mumbai, Railway officals in Delhi threw in a word of caution. Railway sources said that with the existing country-wide speed restriction of 120-130 kmph imposed by Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS), the high-speed train would have to wait for some more time, or run below its potential speed. A main hurdle in giving clearance is the fact that the track is not fenced. ‘‘The track structure is fine. It can sustain the high speed. So can the engine. The danger is cattle that may stray on to the track in absence of a fence,’’ a Railway official told the Express. He added that the Allahabad division had wanted to run trains on their section at 180 kmph way back in 1997. ‘‘They had new ABB locos and the track was in perfect condition. Trial runs were also conducted but the CRS denied permission on the ground of safety, pointing out that there was no way to prevent cattle straying on to the track,’’ the official said. In fact, Konkan Railway’s USP, right from the beginning, had been that trains could run at 160 kmph. However, they had all been running on 90 kmph. ‘‘On the section between Madgaon and Roha — where the trial run was conducted today — there were 42 speed restrictions, i.e trains have to run at less than 70 kmph,’’ he added.
