Travel time between Bangalore and Chennai to shrink to one hour – Indian Railways

The Indian Railways has proposed to introduce a bullet train between Bangalore and Chennai that will cover the 340 km-long distance in just one hour.

According to Divisional Railway Manager of South Western Railways Mahesh Mangal, the Bangalore-Chennai corridor is among the three segments proposed by the Railways for introduction of bullet trains running at a minimum speed of 250 kilometres per hour and a maximum speed of 400 kilometres per hour.

The other segments proposed to have bullet trains in the country are Jaipur-Delhi and Pune-Mumbai. The Railway Board had taken up discussion the bullet train projects announced in the recently approved Railway budget, he said.

A bullet train between Bangalore and Chennai will bring down the average travel time between the two cities from seven hours to one hour, he said. But, the ambitious project, which had been conceived to compete with low-cost domestic airlines, requires dedicated railway tracks and specialist trains.

As per the plans, the high-end service of Indian Rialways would cost a whopping Rs 20 to Rs 30 million for every kilometer and is likely to deploy the magnetic levitation technology to achieve high speeds. “This would involve laying of dedicated tracks and acquiring a special type of moving stock”, Mangal said.

Each high-speed train will have six coaches and will carry about 400 to 500 passengers. The number of coaches could be increased to ten.

Also, the Bangalore-Chennai trip on a bullet train would cost almost as much as air travel in view of the competitive fares offered by low-cost airlines. Railway officials said the tariff for a journey by the bullet train between Bangalore and Chennai could be upwards of Rs 3,000.

Similiarly, the tariff on the Mumbai-Pune corridor would be in the range of Rs 1,500 as compared to average air fares of over Rs 2,500 for the distance. The fares between Delhi and Jaipur could be around Rs 2,400 as against anything between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000 by a flight.