160 kph: Speed increase on New Delhi-Howrah/Mumbai routes moves forward, Railway Board seeks detailed estimates

The Railway Board has sought for detailed estimates for speed raising of New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Howrah routes to 160 kmph at the earliest.

 The co-ordinating railway zones North Central Railway and Western Railway are required to send the combined estimate to the Railway Board at the earliest.

This follows IR’s decision to spend Rs 13490 crore for upgrading the New Delhi-Howrah and the New -Mumbai Rajdhani routes to 160 kmph by 2023.

The objective is to reduce travel time of Howrah Rajdhani from 17 hours to 12 hours and from Mumbai Rajdhani 15.5 hours to 10 hours.

Of this, Rs 6684 crore was set aside for New Delhi-Howrah route and Rs 6806 crore for the New Delhi-Mumbai route.

The New Delhi-Mumbai route straddles Northern Railway, North Central Railway, West Central Railway and Western Railway. The Delhi-Howrah route goes via Northern railway, North Central Railway, East Central Railway and Eastern Railway.

The present status of sectional speeds on the New Delhi-Howrah and New Delhi – Mumbai routes is as follows:-

Zone	Route	Section	Route km	Maximum permissble sectional speed (MPS) in kmph	Speed of fastest train(s) in the section	Number of fastest train pairs	Status of CRS sanction of 130 kmph sectional speed
NR	New Delhi -Mumbai	New-Delhi -Tughlakabad	17	120	120	16	Documents recvd from division and are under signature at headquarters. RDSO has called for track monitoring run to monitor track quality fit to raise section speed to 130
NR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Tughlakabad-Palwal	39	130	160	1	No action required- secion speed already at 130 kmph
NCR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Palwal-Mathura	83	110	160	1	Proposal to raise section MPS to 130 kmph between Palwal and Dhaulpur submitted to CRS on December 3,2019
WCR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Mathura-Nagda	549	110	130	9	Proposal being prepared. Joint Safety Certificate (JSC) for Confirmatory Oscillograph Car Run (COCR) being prepared.
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Nagda-Ratlam	44	130	130	3	Papers to CRS submitted on December 2,2019. CRS sanction received on March 7,2020
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Ratlam-Limkheda	145	100	100	3	Papers to CRSfor 110 kmph submitted on December 2,2019 for 65 route kms between Linkheda and Meghnagar. For the remaining 80 route km 130 kmph not feasible on ghat sectionwith steep curves on gradients
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Limkheda-Godhra	40	110	110	3	Papers to CRSfor 120 kmph submitted on December 2,2019 . However, 130 kmph not feasible on ghat sectionwith steep curves on gradients
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Godhra-Virar	410	130	130	5	papers for 130 kmph signed by all concerned. Bridge data awaited. Two trains – Mumbai Ahmedabad Shatabdi and Amumbai Ahmedabad Double decker get diverted  from Vadodara to Ahmedabad
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Virar-Borivali	26	110	110	5	Not feasible in busy suburban section
WR	New Delhi -Mumbai	Borivali-Mumbai Central	30	100	100	5	Not feasible in busy suburban section
Total	New Delhi -Mumbai	New Delhi -Mumbai	1383
NR	New Delhi-Howrah	New Delhi-Chipiyana Buzurg (Ghaziabad)	29	110	110	48	Documents recvd from division and are under signature at headquarters. RDSO has called for track monitoring run to monitor track quality fit to raise section speed to 130
NCR	New-Delhi-Howrah	Chipiyana Buzurg- New West Cabin outer of  Pt.Deen Dayal Upadhyay Jn	759	110	130	29	Proposal to CRS submitted on November 8 2019. CRS sanction awaited
ECR	New Delhi-Howrah	New West Cabin- Pradhan Khunta	415	130	130	10	Dehri-on-Sone Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Jn 3rd line (119.31 km) application to CRS submitted on May 14,2019
ER	New Delhi-Howrah	Pradhan Khunta -Howrah	250	110	130	5
Total	New-Delhi-Howrah	New Delhi-Howrah	1454

It is gathered that the finance department at Western Railway headquarters is vetting the detailed estimate of its portion of works costing Rs 4893 crore. The approved cost is Rs 3421 crore.

Detailed estimates vetted by financial advisors of North Central Railway and Northern Railway are awaited.

Corridor Blocks

Northern Railway and North Central Railway are on course to raise sectional speed between New Delhi -Mathura Junction and New Delhi-Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Jn (DDU) to 130 kmph.

It is noteworthy that over 100 trains are already running at 130 kmph between New Delhi -Mathura Junction and New Delhi-Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Jn (DDU) on Northern/North Central Railway based on speed certificates given to individual trains.

However, Northern Railway has requested the Railway Board to incorporate a daily 2 to 3 hour corridor blocks in the new time table for doing track / signal /OHE maintenance on these routes.

NCR’s plans

North Central Railway (NCR) had announced in January 2020 that work on 160 kmph up gradation of New Delhi-Howrah and New Delhi-Mumbai route will be commenced.

As part of this exercise, NCR has targeted to construct seven longer loop lines to accommodate two goods trains simultaneously in one loop line in 2020.

Yard remodeling works at Yamuna Bridge and Kanpur are likely to add to traffic handling capacity.

 With targeted auto signalling between Allahabad- Kanpur in 2020, the entire main line between Ghaziabad – Pt. Deen Dayal Updhyay Jn will be with auto signaling thus enhancing capacity on New Delhi-Howrah route. NCR is also targeting ETCS -level -2 advanced cab signaling system between Bamhrauli to Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay jn.

Also on the anvil by 2020 are 10 Electronic interlocking (EI) works to  enhance traffic handling capacity, completion of fencing /boundary wall between Agra and Palwal besides replacing 100 LC gates by 10 road bridges and 90 road under bridges..

Speed at first loop

The Railway Board has also asked zones to increase speed in sections where most of the works have been done and approvals are pending.

In all BG routes, the first Loop Line Speed should be 30 kmph, according the Railway Board

As at the end of February 2020, railway zones had planned to increase speeds of 234 sections besides increasing speeds of 1^st loop line to 30 kmph in stations situated in 98 sections.