India's 1st bullet train set to run in 2026: Railways Minister

Significant progress has been made in the construction of various stations for India's first bullet train and we are geared up to run the first train in one section in 2026, Union Railways and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.

In an interview with IANS, the Union Minister said the work on bullet trains is progressing very well on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route. “More than 290 kms of work has already been done. Bridges have been built over eight rivers. Work is going on at 12 stations. The stations have also come at the same level so that the work is nearing completion,” Ashwini Vaishnaw informed.

“The work is going on at two depots. The work is going on at a very fast pace with the complete target of opening its first section in 2026,” the Union Minister told IANS. The Bullet Train is a very complex project. The work on it started in 2017 and it took almost two-and-a-half years to complete the design.

“Its design is very complex because the vibrations are very strong at the speed at which the train has to run,” informed the Union Minister. “How to manage those vibrations? If we have to take current from above electricity, then how to take that current? Everything like speed, aerodynamics etc. has to be looked at very carefully and the work started immediately after that,” Ashwini Vaishnaw elaborated.

In between, there was a little setback due to the Covid pandemic. “In Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray's government had refused to give permission which delayed the project. But the work is progressing very well now,” the Union Minister noted. The bullet train corridor has a 21-km-long tunnel, including a 7-km undersea stretch.

The deepest point of the tunnel is 56 metres.Inside the tunnel, the bullet trains will run at the speed of 300-320 kmph.The objective is to develop a high-frequency mass transportation system by constructing the High-Speed Rail between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, using Japan's Shinkansen technology (also known as the bullet train).