Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)
Bengaluru, Nov 23: If the Railway Board gives the nod to the feasible study done by the German government, it will take just two hours and 25 minutes to reach Mysuru from Chennai via Bengaluru. Which means the present travel time will be reduced by more than five hours by 2030.
The feasibility study report done by the German government proposes the introduction of bullet train on the Chennai-Arakkonam-Bengaluru-Mysuru route. This project report is already submitted to Ashwani Lohani, chairman of Railway Board by Martin Ney, German ambassador to India. According to the report, if a bullet train is run, the distance of 435 km will take only two hours and 25 minutes with a maximum speed of about 320 kmph. At present it requires seven hours for the same distance to be covered by train.
The proposed bullet train route will include 11% tunnels and will be elevated at 85% of the distance. It will reduce the travel time between the capital city of Bengaluru and Chennai by one hour and 40 minutes while the time between Bengaluru and Mysuru will be cut down by 40 minutes.
The report advises the Railway Board to merge its present rail line with the high-speed track instead of dedicating a high speed corridor as this will reduce the cost as well do away or minimize the hassle of acquiring land for the same. However, Railway Board has rejected this plan citing the over saturation of the present rail network and this will involve many complications.
In the report, German Ambassador Ney says that the Chennai-Mysuru route will be highly viable and provide long term solution in managing the future growth of the traffic. The estimated cost of the proposed project is around Rs one lac crore with an additional Rs 150 crore for rolling stock.
The study report is being reviewed by the Railway Board as per the information given by its chairman Ashwani Lohani. The study was done on both mixed mode as well as the dedicated mode by the team of German government. Railway Board is of the opinion that an in depth study of the dedicated mode was more viable than the mixed mode. The Railway Board forecasts that with the cutting of travel time drastically, it will be able to attract more air travellers as their travel time including baggage and self-check in will be much shorter than that of the air mode of travel.
Once this proposal becomes a reality, the high-speed trains will definitely travel faster than airplanes except for those who live extremely close by to the airport, says Ashwani.
At the same time, a journey between chennai to Mysuru will be comparable to airfares as per the sources quoted in the report. It is learnt that the feasible studies are also being conducted on New Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Nagpur, Mumbai-Chennai and Mumbai-Nagpur routes.