Railways seeks report from DRMs on High-Speed Trains

Railways seeks report from DRMs on High-Speed Trains

New Delhi: Expediting government’s plan of running semi high-speed trains in identified routes, Railways today asked the DRMs to present a report within two weeks, as it prepares to conduct the second trail run on Delhi-Agra section next week and introduce a train by November.

The Divisional Railway Manager (DRMs) of about 19 divisions falling under the identified nine corridors were asked to conduct a detailed study about running trains at 160 km, the issues involved and present the report in two weeks, Chairman Railway Board Arunendra Kumar told reporters after chairing a high-level meeting.

He said the project would be implemented section by section and the process would start after the submission of the reports.

Today’s meeting was attended by all the members of the Railways Board, other senior Railways officials and heads of Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO).

“During the detailed discussion, DRMs of Delhi and Agra also made a detailed presentation to the other DRMs as to how they went about in execution of the project in their divisions,” Kumar said.

The Narendra Modi-led government had proposed to run trains at 160 kmph in nine identified corridors in the Railway Budget this year.

These are Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Kanpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur, Mysore-Bangalore-Chennai, Mumbai-Goa, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Hyderabad and Nagpur-Secunderabad.

The proposed routes also included the Delhi-Agra section and the first trial run on the section has already been concluded.

“Now, we will conduct the second trial run next week and by November we will introduce a train running at 160kmph on this section,” Kumar said, adding the train will comprise 12 coaches.

He, however, did not divulge the fare rates of this train, saying these are yet to be decided as the emphasis right now is smooth execution of the project.

Railways has already received clearance from Commissioner of Railway Safety for running the semi-high speed train on this section.

The first trial run on the section was conducted on July 3 and the train reached Agra in about 90 minutes from Nizamuddin station