New Delhi:
Aiming at reducing travel time in train journey, the Indian Railways is acquiring Electrical Multiple Units (EMU) train sets for premier services like Rajdhani and Shatabdi Expresses for operating at a higher speed of 130-150 km per hour.
The decision to adopt train sets technology was announced in the 2012-13 Railway Budget.
"We are working on introducing modern EMU train sets designed for operations at maximum speed of 130-150 kmph for running premium Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, without any additional expenditure on existing track and signaling infrastructure," said a senior Railway Ministry official.
According to the official, existing rail tracks on Rajdhani routes are fit for running trains up to a speed of 150 km per hour, but average speeds of Rajdhani/Shatabdi trains is less than 90 km per hour due to large number of speed restrictions and poor acceleration of existing loco hauled trains.
The Railways is expecting that the proposed modern distributed powered EMU train sets will be free from these bottlenecks, provide faster and safer movement and will substantially reduce running time.
The proposed EMU train sets consist of 21 cars (coaches) and are estimated to cost about Rs 200 crore per train.
The Railways claim modern train sets are eco friendly, noiseless, consume 30 per cent less energy and do not pollute the environment as in case of conventional loco hauled trains.