India wants the first high-speed trains to run from the summer of 2027. The shorter the travel times
5 km tunnel on the route of the first high-speed railway line in India (photo Satish Bate/Hindustan Times / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia)
India started work on its first high-speed rail line in 2017, and an official has now given a timeline for when the first trains will run. The entire line will be 500 km long, but a 100 km section will be commissioned first, in August 2027 at the earliest.
The entire Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed line will be 508 km long, and trains should travel at 320 km/h and take one hour and 58 minutes, compared to the five and a half hours that today's fastest trains take, writes Railway Gazette International.
Trains should first run on a 100 km section between the cities of Ahmedabad and Vapi, India's railway minister said.
The plan would be for the entire line to be ready in 2029, but it is not known if that is possible, especially since when work began, the advanced deadline was 2023.
And the estimated costs have gone up a lot, from $11 billion to $20 billion for the entire line.
So far 329 km of surface carriageway has been completed and poles for 404 km of the route have been installed.
Excavation work for the seven mountain tunnels is ongoing and the construction of the two large depots is also underway, data from Indian railway authorities shows.
