Kolkata, June 9 (IANS): A wagon manufacturing plant developed jointly by Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and RITES Ltd at Kulti in West Bengal will shortly start production, Railway Board Member Hemant Kumar said here on Friday.

"The wagon manufacturing factory at Kulti is going for production very shortly. The factory has already been completed," said Hemant Kumar.

Developed through a joint venture between SAIL and RITES Ltd, the factory is located in Kulti in Barddhaman district.

The work on the plant started in 2011 after the then Railway Minister and the present Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the project in October 2010.

Hemant Kumar said the focus of the Indian Railways has been on increasing the speed of its trains to reduce the travel time, and noted that most of the trains have been running at 130 km per hour.

He said the Railways were increasingly looking to adopt "semi-high speed" trains that run at 150-200 km an hour as compared to high speed trains that can run at 300-350 km an hour.

"Talgo company from Spain has come up with a product using the same infrastructure and the maximum permissible speed, which can reduce travel time. They are running a trial. The expected saving of time will be about 2.5 hours on the Mumbai-Delhi route. If the concept is proven, we will go for it," he said.