Indian Railways is probably the oldest large living business enterprise in the country. It has seen, since its advent in 1850’s, linking of remote and hilly areas, when automobiles didn’t even exist. It has lived through hap-hazard growth under the British and the Princely States, each following their own whims and standards. The Indian Railways have survived partition, flourished due to project uniguage, massive expansion and consolidation, reorganisations, oil-crisis, new technologies of rolling stock, tracks, and signals. Indeed, over the last one hundred and seventy years Indian Railways has also consistently earned reasonable profits and even largely funded its own growth and technology acquisitions. It has cadres of dedicated engineers, non-engineers, and staff that are under permanent employment and are attached to it even in retirement.
Some of these strengths, however, have resulted in silos that seek to grow vertically rather than horizontally, never intermingling with the adjoining silos in collaboration. Due to such isolation from the surrounding interacting systems has arisen a parental love for one’s own assets, department, and associated technology paths. Therefore, while we have 160/180 kmph passenger coaches and locomotives for over two decades, the brand-new Vande Bharat being actually being in the same speed-bracket, we have never been able to run these even at 130kmph for any meaningful distances. The celebrated C&M Volume I (a track standard) specifies tracks fit for 130kmph, but only for select trains. All other trains are restricted to 110kmph even though the track is “130kmph fit”. How does a network planner plan the throughput on such routes?
The Vande Bharat Express, a semi-high-speed train has caught the attention of the nation like nothing else in the recent memory. A high-speed train is actually a low-hanging fruit. We have had these for decades. We now plan to build 200 and 250kmph trains notwithstanding the fact that we don’t have tracks even to test them, let alone operate them commercially. Trains can be built in walled factories that don’t have to run them; trains can even be procured from the private sector or imported. Indian Railways’ Production Units can design and build a 200kmph, or speedier, train without any technology inputs from developed countries. The knowhow exists, or can be quickly developed, and the available supply chain is competent enough. On the other hand, it is the private sector that is struggling even in the face of assured purchase contracts.
Tracks and bridges, however, have to be built at site and kept ship-shape right where they lie. Signals can be procured but must be maintained at site in most cases. It is therefore an issue of organisation-wide culture that nurtures high speed infrastructure. The practice of train and loco maintenance is confined to sheds and depots, where good systems are easy to develop and sustain. The practice of maintenance of tracks and signals must transcend geography and several layers of management right down to the last man in the field. The Konkan Railway was built with a speed potential of 160kmph, that too in a difficult terrain. But never did a single service run on its tracks at that speed even though trains already existed to exploit that speed potential. KRCL soon degenerated to 110kmph due to maintenance practices that were honed on 110kmph lines.
A High-Speed-Rail system is a composite system of modern rolling stock, high-speed tracks, and necessary signalling and safety systems. Most HSR systems have dedicated tracks, even in our country, whether it is the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR or RRTS Intercity. Investments are commensurately allocated in these systems in a holistic manner, not on departmental lobbying. Several disjointed projects to speed-up trains on our networks have failed to achieve even 130kmph. Several more are underway absorbing tens of thousands of crores. Unless there is a cultural and organisational transformation to permanently maintain such upgraded tracks to 130/160kmph standards, these upgraded routes will also meet the fate of the KRCL tracks. There is no sign of that coming even though Capital expenditure has been committed in ample measure.
It is the competitive resource grab that decides investments today. For example, with liberal budgetary support it has become an avowed target, nay a necessity, to modernise railway stations. Allocations for facelift for over a thousand railway stations, many of them in small or mid-size towns like Ranchi or Bhagalpur, are large enough for the facelift of the entire respective town. But the station facelift will go into granite and air-conditioned lounges, things that do not improve the experience of the average traveller and certainly do not improve train services or train upkeep, the raison d'être of a railway station.
We have had clamour for anti-collision systems for trains over the last many decades. The proposed system has undergone various name-changes and technology promises beginning from a fittingly-named Anti Collision Device to ETCS, Levels I and II, to the new and appealing name Kavach. It is estimated that a comprehensive Kavach installation on the entire network and on propulsion units may cost upwards of one and half lakh crore Rupees. Such massive investment is being committed on a technology that is not even proven over a short stretch. Does it make sense to duplicate the 300kmph ETCS Level II, albeit with an Indian name, on our routes and vehicles that are constrained to run at 110-130kmph for the next many decades?
We have procured expensive electric locomotives with 12000 horsepower that promised to transform freight traffic. But they turned out to be ineffective and needed to be assisted by diesel bankers in the very terrain they promised to conquer. This exposed not only poor understanding of traction engineering, but also irresponsible financial judgement. We continue to procure thousands of new freight electric locomotives without exploring how surplus passenger electric locomotives could be reconfigured to haul freight – a simple change in the gear-ratio, and software modification could have achieved that. Remember, large scale induction of Vande Bharat type trains and MEMUs will render a large number of passenger electric locomotives surplus. Yet investment in new locomotives continues unabated.
What is the way out of this ad hocism and unstructured investment planning? The Railway Ministry and the Board is manned by people of wisdom, who need to be trained, yes trained, to think for the organisation, not the department. A core team of engineers and finance experts need to draw medium and long-term technology maps that allocates resources on a need basis that ensures that all components of the Railway System grow like a manicured garden, not a hap-hazard shrubbery. Budget allocations, available and needed technologies, cash flow over the years, training of personnel, involvement of an assured supply-chain, make-in-India, and rates of return need to be laid down in hard numbers and measurable objectives. The core team will also be required to periodically examine the progress and benefits so that mid-course corrections can be done to optimise returns.
Only such a binding exercise will avoid situations like 160kmph trains that cannot run even at 130 as tracks and signals, curves and bridges do not match up. This technology plan should also aim at providing impeccable safety, robust communication systems, disaster management, and maximising throughput. Needless to say, the Railway Board must steer and vet this technology-map and reorganise investments accordingly for that is their job.
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