Talgo aims to bring down the travel time between Delhi and Mumbai to 12 hours. (Representational Photo)
Spanish-made train Talgo started its third and final phase of trials from Delhi to Mumbai on Monday evening aiming a maximum speed of 130 kmph and is expected to reach the financial capital in about four hours less than the time taken by Rajdhani.
Talgo aims to cut the travel time between Delhi and Mumbai to 12 hours.
The train with nine lightweight coaches started its journey at 7.55 PM from New Delhi station and is expected to reach Mumbai at about 8.31 AM in the morning.
"This is the timing trial and we want to find out how much time it is likely to save if we allow such type of coaches to run on our track. Four such trials will take place with speed ranging from 130 kmph to 150 kmph," Railway Board Member (Mechanical) Hemant Kumar told news agency PTI.
The second trial will be held on August 5, the third on August 9 and the fourth and final on August 14.
"First trial will be at 130 km per hour today and the train is expected to take 12 hours 36 minutes to reach Mumbai. While Rajdhani takes 16 hours, this is expected to take four hours less to reach Mumbai," Mr Kumar said.
He said since the train is lighter, and takes lesser time for acceleration and deceleration on curves.
"This is our time trial. We had already done the safety trial between Palwal and Mathura where we had gone upto 180 kmph both loaded and empty run," he added.
The second trial between Delhi and Mumbai will also be at 130 kmph and in the third trial, the train will be allowed to run at a higher speed of 140 kmph.
"Then the fourth trial will be at 150 kmph with higher speed on the curves. We expect that it is likely to take 11 hours 30 minutes at 150 kmph to reach Mumbai," he said.
Railways had conducted the first trial run of Talgo trains on the Bareilly-Moradabad stretch in Uttar Pradesh in May. The second trial run was conducted on the Palwal-Mathura section of the North-Central Railway.
However, Mr Kumar said the train cannot be used on Indian Railways in its present form.
"This has got lower platform height and in this form it cannot be used. After trial if we decide to go for it then we have to find ways and means as to how to go about it," he said.