Rail service and travel by rail in India and Bangladesh

[jis]

When India announces it will build something, I guess one can safely assume that it will actually get built pretty soon, and not that they have just approved the intention to grant permission to do more studies to evaluate the potential possibility that might result from further studies into planning further studies.

These are short segments which should be up and running by 2030-31 according to the press release. The Ganga Bridge which will be a kilometer long structure may take a little longer. Further down stream it is much wider, for example at Farakka Barrage it is a 1.6km long (1 mile) long structure with flow control gates in the entire length of it and a double track railroad and a road on it.

Is Nimbyism a serious problem for rail construction in India? I understand agricultural land is for the most part held by smallholders, meaning that on a rail corridor of any length there must be a near astronomical number of parties to negotiate with.

Nimbyism or more appropriately disagreements about property acquisition can delay things a lot. Usually land acquisition is left to the State Governments to handle since they understand the local politics much better than any federal outfit. In India property rights are relatively well protected.

Exhibit A of the type of problems with property acquisition and transfer is the Tarakeshwar - Bishnupur line which is held up by a single village which wants the line to be routed differently so that it does not impinge on their village pond at a place called Bhabadighi. The project has been built from both ends to the periphery of the disputed area and train service runs from both ends to the last stop on each side of the village. After about 7 years finally a settlement has been reached and the gap is finally in the process of being filled, and EMU service will be able to run from Howrah all the way to Bishnupur as was intended, instead of terminating in the middle of nowhere at Goghat.

Another example is the Nasirpur Bridge near Azimganj across the Hooghly ( the river that flows through Kolkata) The bridge had been built some six years back but was not usable as one of the approach embankments could not be built due to land dispute. It was recently resolved and finally trains can start running. The venerable Darjeeling Mail is going to use this bridge to shorten its route to the north by some 50km.

 

[jis]

Domestic passenger rail service has resumed in Bangladesh after a suspension of 28 days due to unrest in the country. Cross border rail service remains suspended until further notice. Dhaka Metro will restart operations on the 17th. Several of its stations were gutted in fires during the unrest. Limited cross border transport of cargo by road has resumed, currently limited to emergency supplies. Cross border rail freight service remains suspended but might resume in the near future.

There was no effect on rail or road service to border towns on the Indian side during the outage in Bangladesh. Some of those areas are part of the Kolkata Suburban system (e.g. Gede, Bongaon, Petrapole, Hasnabad).

 

[jis]

Exchange of freight trains between India and Bangladesh has been resumed starting today after 47 days of suspension. For now only the Benapole - Petrapole and Gede - Darshana border has been opened for freight. No passenger service yet. All the other border rail crossing check posts are still closed.

 

[jis]

13 new Vande Bharat Expresses are being inaugurated in this week and last two weeks All are equipped with the Kavach collision avoidance and train protection system. Of them three are from Howrah (Kolkata):

• Gaya - where Gautam Buddha got his enlightenment, one of the most sacred places for Buddhists of the world. Huge number of people from abroad visit here. Gaya is in Bihar State on the Grand Chord the fastest route between Howrah and Delhi.
• Rourkela - Steel City in Odisha State, this train connects the industrial belt of Jharkhand State (including Tatanager the site of the first Steel Plant in India) and Kharagpur (the site of the first IIT) to Kolkata. For both this is an additional Vande Bharat, as they are already served by at least another Vande Bharat.
• Bhagalpur - Large city on the banks of the Ganga. This train connects Kolkata to a relatively backward area of the state of Bihar running on a newly constructed line opening up that area to easy access.Although of no consequence as far as Vande Bharat goes,, my paternal Grandfather was born here.

One really interesting route which should be quite successful as it connects a large city in Central India to one in South India is the one between Nagpur (Vidarbha region of Maharashtra State - Mumbai is in this state) and Secunderabad (Hyderabad).

Also the New Delhi - Varanasi Vande Bharat has now been upgraded to the first 20 car Vande Bharat to meet demand. Vande Bharat train architecturally allow growth by 4 cars units.

 

[jis]

Just saw an extended News Conference with the Railway Minister of India Mr. Ashwin Viashnav. Here are some salient points that I picked up on the fly.:

After evaluation of demand patterns it has been determined that Indian Railways (IR) needs to do much more to meet demand for non-airconditioned inexpensive travel. To address this segment 2,500 additional non-ac General Second Class (GS) Coaches will be manufactured and deployed by March '25. In the following two years 10,000 additional GS coaches will be manufactured and deployed. The goal is to have 4 to 6 GS coaches in each partially non-ac Mail/Express trains with popular trains getting at least 6.

Additionally fully non-AC Amrit Bharat Expresses with close to the best schedule achievable with a 130kph (~80mph) speed limit will be deployed on popular routes. These train will consist of 11 3-Tier Sleepers and 11 GS. This will provide a reliable platform for travel between any two points served by these train for under Rs. 500 (about $6!). The mention of 130kph is in recognition of IR safety standards which require trains traveling above 130kph (~80mph) to be sealed with no open windows.

I was surprised to learn that in this summer season coming to close when there is huge increase i9n demand, IR ran close to 20,000 special trains, i.e. trains not in regular schedule but run to clear extra demand beyond what can be handled by the regular schedule. There is something to be said in favor of such. We have often heard complaints here regarding the inability of Amtrak to do something like this, provide temporary additional service on demand,

In 2023, IR built and put into service 5,300km of new route trackage.

IR manufacturing facilities manufactured and deployed over 1200 new locomotives, mostly electric WAP7, WAP5, WAG9. Additional locomotives were built beyond these by Alstom and GE.

About 7,000 new Coaches were deployed, all LHB many self standing and some as part of Vande Bharat articulated sets. Additionally EMUs manufactured by various factories were deplopyed for suburban service in major metropolises.

The more than a dozen new Vande Bharat services inaugurated this week were of Vande Bharat V3, which comes with Kavach ATP pre-installed. The next major deployment will be of Vande Bharat V4 product which will be fully internationalized UIC compliant. The Indian version will be equipped with Kavach ATP. The international version will be customized for each customer. There have been inquiries about availability of V4 from Malaysia and Chile.

 

[west point]

Here is something for JIS to comment.

https://trainpalaceonwheels.com/train-route/?msclkid=d0cf743446051b5a5f2512dcc0a4f6b8

Another luxury train.

https://deccan-odyssey.com/?msclkid=8307f9120f2f19a820469ffae6965b02

 

[railiner]

It is truly staggering to hear off the massive amount of new equipment IR seems to easily acquire…

 

[jis]

The Vande Bharat EMU architecture enables reconfiguration of trains to various lengths to meet demand on specific routes. Exercising this flexibility so far 8 and 16 car train sets had been deployed. Starting on the 16th of September the first 20 cars set was deployed on the pre-existing New Delhi - Varanasi route replacing the 16 car set. Each of the eight car half of the 16 car set gets two cars added to it, one motor and one trailer, served out of the existing pantograph/transformer car.

It is truly staggering to hear off the massive amount of new equipment IR seems to easily acquire…

Without diving too much into non railroad stuff, one of the big sources of capital investment comes from the GST that was introduced several years back. They have been able to hold their Debt GDP ratio using the purchasing power parity GDP World GDP database at between 50% and 55% while investing massively in infrastructure. In straight exchange terms as reported by IMF their debt GDP ratio has hovered around 80%. They can maintain this level of investments as long as they manage to keep growing their GDP to stay ahead of the curve while keeping debt under control like they have so far in this century. There was a time when India was all but bankrupt in the early '90s.

Here is something for JIS to comment.

https://trainpalaceonwheels.com/train-route/?msclkid=d0cf743446051b5a5f2512dcc0a4f6b8

Another luxury train.

https://deccan-odyssey.com/?msclkid=8307f9120f2f19a820469ffae6965b02

Both are tourist trains. Not commercial transportation operation. Their ridership is minuscule in the overall scheme of things but they are incredibly profitable since the fares they can charge are way more than what it costs to maintain and operate them. They run on relatively lose schedules so an hour or two this way or that way are quite OK, and hence do not interfere in operation of priority express/mail trains. They operate with enormous schedule padding too. Afterall there is no need to get from anywhere to anywhere fast.

 

[Rambling Robert]

Speaking of tourism, my plans to go to Bangladesh have been postponed until problems with the student uprising subside. Although I would mainly be in Cox’s Bazar I would be traveling by plane through Dakar a high level of travel advisory. I have a possible long layover there, which would have some risk to it.

I don’t want to go any later than May 2025 - so I’ll see. My general plan was to fly from Norway to Cox’s Bazar, and have a travel agent from there book my hotel and my driver/translator. My travel from Cox’s Bazar to Feni, about 8 hours to the west, by hired car and translator. On the return, I will take the train that is being built-out from Cox is about 100 miles in to the west. Then the driver will drop me off at that train station and I would travel on train to Cox’s Bazsr.

My travel to Norway is to take north south trains into the Arctic Circle to see the aurora borealis. It’s passing from late autumn to early spring. Also during this period it is the non-monsoon season in Bangladesh, which is when I intend to travel.

 

[jis]

Speaking of tourism, my plans to go to Bangladesh have been postponed until problems with the student uprising subside. Although I would mainly be in Cox’s Bazar I would be traveling by plane through Dakar a high level of travel advisory. I have a possible long layover there, which would have some risk to it.

I don’t want to go any later than May 2025 - so I’ll see. My general plan was to fly from Norway to Cox’s Bazar, and have a travel agent from there book my hotel and my driver/translator. My travel from Cox’s Bazar to Feni, about 8 hours to the west, by hired car and translator. On the return, I will take the train that is being built-out from Cox is about 100 miles in to the west. Then the driver will drop me off at that train station and I would travel on train to Cox’s Bazsr.

My travel to Norway is to take north south trains into the Arctic Circle to see the aurora borealis. It’s passing from late autumn to early spring. Also during this period it is the non-monsoon season in Bangladesh, which is when I intend to travel.

As of today at least most of the domestic rail service has been restored, though the situation still remains volatile and is unlikely to settle down fully until fresh elections are held and selective ethno-political murders come to an end. International service apparently will remain suspended for the foreseeable future.

 

[jis]

Meanwhile in India they have been furiously working on installing fences along the tracks and installing Kavach ATP equipment at all interlockings on the Mumbai (Central) - Delhi and Kolkata (Howrah) - Delhi route in preparation for upgrading operating speed from 130kph (80mph) to 160kph (100mph) by the end of 2025. The first segment to go into service is the Mumbai (Central) Vadodara section of the route to Delhi.

For the first time there will be truly overnight service between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi, and Kolkata with train leaving around dinner time and arriving next morning just past Breakfast time. In the US an equivalent would be New York to Chicago service with train leaving New York at 7pm and arriving in Chicago at 8am or thereabouts - around 13-14 hours. These trains will most likely use Vande Bharat Sleeper EMU consists to take advantage of superior acceleration and deceleration. Vande Bharat consists are already cleared for commercial operation at 160kph on fenced Kavach ATP equipped tracks. Three of them do operate commercially at 160kph on the Delhi Mathura segment.

 

[jis]

Click on the link below to see a photo (Copyright Partha Pratim Mondal) posted on Skyscraper City site.

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-...ty.com/attachments/1727640370424-png.7982208/

At first glance it appears to be a run of the mill photo of snow capped peaks in the distance. This photo however is taken from Dhumdangi Station in North Bengal and it is special because what you are seeing is the third highest peak in the world, Kanchenjunga. Not too many place in the world where you can see one of the highest peaks in the world while waiting for a main line train on an electrified railroad.

 

[caravanman]

Meanwhile in India they have been furiously working on installing fences along the tracks...

Gosh, it will be most strange to see the tracks clear of, err, washing, hawkers, animals, pedestrians...

 

[jis]

Gosh, it will be most strange to see the tracks clear of, err, washing, hawkers, animals, pedestrians...

Allegedly the fences are for keeping animals away from the tracks. Animal loss is a huge problem, and poses some danger of derailment. I think they pretty much accept the fact that there is no practical cost effective way of successfully preventing human attempts at getting the Darwin Award in general. That is a huge problem with a death toll of over 15,000 per year system wide. When electrification first became widespread, another problem was death by electrocution of people trying to ride on the roof of trains on electrified lines. Now that has pretty much stopped. One would hope something similar would happen with walking along or across tracks carelessly.

 

[jis]

In addition to fencing, the other requirement set by CRS (Commissioner of Railway Safety) is the installation and commissioning of full Kavach 4.0 trackside, locomotive and control segments on the routes cleared for speeds above 130kph.

Kavach 4.0 has the following features:

• Cab signal with allowed speed displayed with a band on the Speedometer in the locomotive
• Dynamic display of target speed. This helps the operator maintain optimal speed to prevent bunching of trains behind. Distance to target based speed curve computation and display is part of this feature.
• Automatic Speed enforcement with two stages, slight overspeed, automatically controlled. forced overspeed (driver attempting to override automatic speed control) controlled by penalty brake to stop.
• PSR/TSR notification and enforcement with distance to target based speede curve enforcement.
• Automatic Whistle activation at required points. This is designated by trackside "W" markers on IR. "W/L" marker denotes "Whistle for Level crossing".
• Head on Collision prevention. This is similar to the TCAS system on planes. The Loco segment communicates with other Locos detected around, and exchanges track/position information to make this work. This works even if interlocking fails and routes two trains on the same track. This is a new feature, and as it turns out, the predecessor of Kavach was primarily this feature developed by the Konkan Railway Company for operating its predominantly single main line track system.

Kavach has been installed on 90% of the trunk route between Delhi and Mumbai via Western Railway and Delhi and Kolkata via Grand Chord and Howrah Bardhaman Chord. 50% of the locomotives have it installed, and 70% of stations/interlockings have it installed and active. The timeline is to complete installation on these two routes by mid-2025, with commercial service inauguration at current speeds later that year. Speed will then be increased incrementally to 160kph by the end of 2026. Total of 3,000 route km is involved in this first stage.

Last week they ran a test of the head on collision prevention feature on the Mathura - Sawai Madhopur segment of the Delhi - Mumbai route successfully. The two trains approaching each other on the same track at 130kph each successfully stopped themselves automatically with considerable distance between them to spare, with automatic emergency brake application. The Railway Minister was in one of the locomotives and the Chairman of the Railway Board in the other. So a failure would have been catastrophic in many ways.

Just learned some additional technical details. As you know in ACSES transponders are mounted under each home signal, and at a few additional places. In Kavach, track information transponders are mounted every kilometer on each track. Additionally there are section information transponders mounted under each signal and 200m on each side of each signal. These are all static devices that are read by the locomotive. Among other things the locomotive actively reports its position to the office segment and this information is also transmitted in the TCAS system to inform other locomotives in the vicinity of the train including position, direction of travel and speed. Until now I did not realize how much more information is available to the system in a more precise form. Interestingly GPS is primarily used for synchronized time signal but only as a secondary source of position should the track mounted mechanism fail for some reason.

 

[west point]

GPS is primarily used for synchronized time signal but only as a secondary source of position should the track mounted mechanism fail for some reason.

IMO thast is what is needed in the USA. The situation with 'Russia and China make it likely that GPS might be shut down at least for civilian use if not completely shut down.

 

[jis]

Just found an example of the Kavach in cab display:


At the right is the cab signal showing the next signal as Green (Clear) The Blue band next to it shows how far the current signal authority covers, i.e. the distance to the next signal. The Green band around the Speedometer shows the current authorized speed. This will change if TSR/PSR come into effect showing the allowed speed and it will also show target speed for regulating the speed so as to be able to meet the restriction at the starting point of the restriction.

 

[caravanman]

It seems like a very comprehensive system, apparently developed from original "open source" software. I won't pretend to understand all the technical aspects, but it does sound like the Bee's Knees in providing a comprehensive overview and intervention train management system!

 

[railiner]

Just found an example of the Kavach in cab display:

View attachment 37945
At the right is the cab signal showing the current authority as Green (Clear) The Blue band next to it shows how far the signal authority covers. The Green band around the Speedometer shows the current target speed. This will change if TSR/PSR come into effect showing the allowed speed and it will also show target speed for regulating the speed so as to be able to meet the restriction at the starting point of the restriction. This last feature I am not sure about in 4.0 but apparently is in the feature set for some release.

Wow, with all that information available to the engineer, it almost seems like an experienced engineer could run a train in a new territory, without having to “qualify” on it with many student trips.
That is, until something goes wrong…

 

[caravanman]

Wow, with all that information available to the engineer, it almost seems like an experienced engineer could run a train in a new territory, without having to “qualify” on it with many student trips.
That is, until something goes wrong…

Next thing you know, there won't even be an engineer aboard the automated trains...

 

[jis]

It seems like a very comprehensive system, apparently developed from original "open source" software. I won't pretend to understand all the technical aspects, but it does sound like the Bee's Knees in providing a comprehensive overview and intervention train management system!

Yes it is developed from ground up using open software. Currently it is not interoperable with ETCS but in v5.0 allegedly it will be. Of what that exactly means would bear some extended explanation.

 

[west point]

Reported a passenger train had a green but switch sent it into a goods train.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/d...S&cvid=1c7bb7b0ffda49ae80514a8041619fe4&ei=18

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/oth...S&cvid=e4cf690bfa954a88bcaf83d89fec3c3f&ei=18

Rerailing efforts. Cannot wait for equivalent of India's NTSB
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...S&cvid=1f164c5b3be44ffaa0ce686bc2f0129e&ei=35

Kavach explained. you judge its info

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/oth...S&cvid=7100d2fa8c2c426ca7b59c44275494fb&ei=44

 

[jis]

Rerailing efforts. Cannot wait for equivalent of India's NTSB
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...S&cvid=1f164c5b3be44ffaa0ce686bc2f0129e&ei=35

The equivalent of NTSB dedicated to Railway Safety in India is the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) which is chartered under the Ministry of Civil Aviation (in order to place it outside the Ministry of Railway to avoid conflict of interest) and is responsible for investigating all consequential accidents.

Anyhow, this accident has now gone beyond the remit of CRS as a preliminary investigation suggested that the track was tampered with. So the National Investigation Agency (NIA) (under the Ministry of Home Affairs) which investigates criminal and terrorism related events, has been brought in. CRS will still investigate the technical details and report on it while NIA will follow up on the sabotage aspect of things. Here is what has been going on as far as the investigation goes:

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/sto...gle-tracks-likely-hampered-2615941-2024-10-12

It will typically take many weeks before an interim report is published. CRS tends to be quite thorough and also makes recommendation to the Railway Board (what amount to be the Board of Directors of Indian Railways) and RDSO (Research, Design and Standards Organization of IR) which sets and monitors compliance with standards on IR. The actual enforcement is the Railway Board's responsibility.

Incidentally, one of the videos posted in the OP shows the CRS representatives investigating the track at the switch which had a Sleeper car on top of it. BTW, the train was traveling at 80kph at the time of the incident.

All I can say is that those LHB cars are built like brick shithouses, quite a contrast from the older ICF/Schlieren cars, which tended to fall apart. The amount of beating that they took while still maintaining structural integrity is impressive. The fact that there were no fatalities and relatively few injuries amazes me. Specially the fact that the two Engineers walked away from the ALP-47 boggles the mind. The fact that all the cars in the front of the train were Air-conditioned and hence sealed making it impossible for people to get tossed out may also have played a role in keeping everyone within the protective shell of the cars instead of being tossed out onto the track as the derailment unfolded.

Meanwhile, the first train to pass by the accident site on a single restored track was the Chennai Rajdhani Express powered by HOG WAP-7

 

[caravanman]

Gosh, I too am impressed that the LHB carriages did not telescope or rip apart, as well as the front of the loco looking "fairly okay"... I wonder what type of goods wagons were run into, maybe quite low level, given the loco's frontal condition.
I seem to remember reading that couplings should not break apart in an accident, but I can't be sure? Definitely a blessing that it was not ICF old style stock!
The video lingers on the points at one time, and it certainly looks like many bolts are missing...

 

[cirdan]

Gosh, I too am impressed that the LHB carriages did not telescope or rip apart, as well as the front of the loco looking "fairly okay"...

Without wishing to detract from the argument about the better build of these cars, no doubt having already saved countless lives, a caveat is that the amount of damage inflicted is dependent on the speed at the moment of impact. In physics, the kinetic energy scales with the square of the speed, meaning a train going at double the speed has four times the kinetic energy, or a 41% greater speed means a 100% increase in kinetic energy. It is this kinetic energy that is chiefly responsible for things being torn apart on impact. So one should be careful comparing damage without also knowing the speeds involved in both cases.