LyrArc Article Gist
The Mumbai Ahmedabad Bullet Train project is shown here on the Rail Minister Ashwani Vaishnav site in You Tube Video. Rapid buildup is progressing use new technological methods with Japanese help. The first undersea rail tunnel of this kind under Thane Creek for 21 kilometres on the Mumbai side. The 508 kilometer distance cuts travel time between two major commercial cities in western India from 7 to 2 hours. It will then be replicated after completion in 2027 and 2029 (final), across other Indian cities north to south east to west. PM Modi has emphasized this in vist to Surat last week talking to engineering personnel that the important aspect is what can be learnt from this section of bullet train engineering that can be replicated or improved across many Indian cities over a land mass almost the size of European Union (3.3 million square kms India to 4.3 million EU).

Technology: Japanese Shinkansen E10 Series. In comparison Kawasaki Steel technology of an earlier generation used for China's earlier bullet trains and redeveloped for the newest CR450. Germany uses ICE 3 neo of Siemens, France 5th generation TGV M Avelia Horizon of Alstom.

Stations- Mumbai (Bandra-Kurla), Thane, Virar, Boisar on Maharashtra side and on Gujarat side Vapi, Bilimora, Bharuch, Surat, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati

Cost: $17 billion through a loan from JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency. A key achievement stemming from close relationship of PM Shinzo Abe 2012-2020 and Modi of India starting when Modi was CM of Gujarat.

Significance:  Just as it did for China this will dispel the notion that Indians could not borrow technologies and capital and with its own engineering capabilities build high speed rail infrastructure across a terrain the size of EU. The naysayers are both in India as they were with China in 2000 period and in US/Europe. It requires a special determination, persistence, vision and leadership as happened in Japan in 1960's in China in 2000's and India 2030 to show what can be done to their people oppressed by the sense that failures of the past could not be overcome. Note that it was Japan that stepped up its help to setup the bullet train system in China by 2004. Japan's Hideo Shima and Shinji Sogo were the chief engineers for Japan's first bullet train in 1964 invented by Japan as first in the world to do this. 

Next bullet trains and travel time cut to:

Ahmedabad to New Delhi through Jaipur

Mumbai- Pune will be a mountain tunneling exercize as much of it through mountainous terrain. Cut travel to 45 minutes.

Pune to Hyderabad

Hyderabad to Bangalore cut travel to 2 hours

Bangalore to Chennai or Madras cut travel to 3 hours  (Shanghai has always remained Shanghai so has Ahmedabad, its all about what can be done not names)

Chennai  to Bangalore cut travel time to 1 hour and 13 minutes

Delhi to Varanasi

Varanasi to Siliguri through Patna

From the Alps to the North Sea in the EU, in India bullet trains can take one from Indian Ocean at Sri Lanka to the Himalayan mountains terrain and Nepal.