'Made in India' bullet trains with top speed of 250 kmph in making

The railways has tasked state-owned Integral Coach Factory (ICF) with locally manufacturing two standard-gauge bullet trains this fiscal year, as talks with Japanese suppliers got stuck over price, officials in the know said.

This is the first time that India will manufacture a train that can reach maximum speeds of 250 kilometres per hour (kmph).

These two trains are expected to run on the ₹1.08 lakh crore Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail corridor.


The trains would likely be built on the Vande Bharat platform. While using an existing platform would help ICF cut the time required to roll out the trainsets, supplying those in this fiscal year itself would be a challenge, said experts.

"ICF, Chennai has been tasked to build and deliver two standard-gauge trainsets of eight cars, each featuring a steel car body, and a running speed of 220 kmph and a maximum speed of 250 kmph," a senior official aware of the move told ET. An order for the trains was issued earlier this week, he added. Officials said talks with a consortium of Japanese rolling stock suppliers - Hitachi and Kawasaki - have been going on for long but had made little headway.

"Negotiations are still underway. We expect the Japanese to stick closer to our cost estimates for supply of bullet train rolling stock," a second official said. It will take suppliers around three years from the date of award to honour the contract terms, the official added.

The cost of a 10-coach bullet train was estimated at ₹389 crore in 2018. Each train was supposed to attain cruising speeds of over 300 kmph. In 2023, the estimated supply cost was revised to ₹460 crore per trainset.

While the Japanese consortium had expressed willingness to supply the 'Shinkansen' trainsets, the Indian Railways is still not convinced on the price they were being offered. The original plan involved sourcing trainsets from Japanese companies as Japan International Cooperation Agency had provided ₹59,396 crore to build the bullet train project. Indian and Japanese suppliers were prioritised in procurement tenders for this project.

The project has been significantly delayed from its original completion deadline of 2022, largely on account of land acquisition hurdles in Maharashtra. Experts say that for ICF supply within the timeline set by the Indian Railways to develop the trains which can run at 250 kmph will be an uphill task.

According to Sudhanshu Mani, a retired Indian Railways official, who is credited with developing the first variant of the Vande Bharat trains, the current top speed of Vande Bharat trains is only 180 kmph.

"This bullet train development and supply target can be achieved by ICF over three to four years," he added.