Spanish Talgo trains to cut Delhi-Mumbai travel time to 12 hours

Indian Railways may replace the present Rajdhani trains with much faster Talgo trains from Spain as railway minister Suresh Prabhu looks at the possibility of improving the working of railways in the country and make train travel in India attractive.

The first Talgo train is expected to reach Mumbai port tomorrow (21 April) and, reports say, the train will be brought to Delhi and trials will be conducted on the Mathura-Palwal section before a full-fledged trial takes place on the Delhi-Mumbai route.

The Series-9 high speed talgo train manufactured by the Spanish firm Talgo can run up to 160-220 kilometer per hour against the 140 km limit for the current Rajdhani trains.

In July 2015, Talgo stated its intention to ship a Series 9 train to India at its own cost as a demonstration on the Mumbai-Delhi rail route.

The first trial run on the Delhi-Mumbai route is also likely soon as there is no need for any major overhaul of the tracks. Once introduced train travel between Mumbai and Delhi is likely to be cut down to around 12 hours, from the current 17 hours by Rajdhani trains.

Once the trail runs are over, the roll out of the trains is expected soon as no major overhauling of tracks is needed unlike the infrastructure needed for running bullet trains from Japan.

Of the 60,000 km of railway tracks in India, only some of the tracks would be upgraded, but most would be used as they are, say official sources.

Talgo trains use an unconventional articulated design for its passenger cars, which the company patented in 1941. The wheels are mounted in pairs but not joined by an axle and are shared between coaches rather than underneath individual coaches.

This allows a railway car to take a turn at higher speed with less swaying. As the coaches are not mounted directly onto wheel bogies, the coaches are more easily insulated from track noise.

Talgo trains fitted with variable gauge axles can change rail gauge - for instance at the 1,668 mm Iberian gauge /1,435 mm standard gauge at the Spanish-French border interchange.

Inside, the train, every individual seat has amenities like footrest, reading light, tables, audio entertainment control. The seats offer comfort. To make the travel lively too, the train is fitted with monitors for video entertainment.

However, Talgo will make train travel more expensive than now, but faster, comfortable travel will definitely make up for the rise in the cost of tickets.

Once the trial runs are over and the train is launched on the Delhi-Mumbai route, Talgo trains will be rolled out on other routes across the country.