According to Mr Vaishnaw, 295.5 km of piers and 153 km of flyovers have already been completed.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday took to X to share a video of India’s first ballastless rail system being developed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. Significant progress has been made on the Bullet Train, which has a speed barrier of 320 km/h, the minister revealed. According to Mr Vaishnaw, 295.5 km of piers and 153 km of flyovers have already been completed.
He posted a video of the same on his
Watch the video here:
Bharat’s first ballastless song for #BulletTrain !
✅320 km/h speed bump
✅153 km viaduct completed
✅295.5 km of pier works completedThere’s more to come in Modi 3.0 pic.twitter.com/YV6vP4tbXS
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (मोदी का परिवार) (@AshwiniVaishnaw) March 28, 2024
Ballastless track, or ‘plate track’, is becoming increasingly popular for high-speed lines in some countries. Notably, this is the first time that the J-slab ballastless track system has been used in India. The innovative rail system consists of prefabricated track slabs that are carefully equipped with fasteners and rails.
This slab rests on the RC track bed with a thickness of approximately 300 mm and is constructed on site (on site) for individual UP and Down track lines on the top of the viaduct. The RC rail bed has a width of 2420 mm, which ensures stability, National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL) said.
“The bullet train project must be seen from the perspective of integrating economies. In the first corridor that Indian Railways is working on, Mumbai, Thane, Vapi, Baroda, Surat, Anand and Ahmedabad, all these economies will become a single economy. You can have breakfast in Surat, finish your work in Mumbai and come back in the evening with your family,” Mr Vaishnaw said on March 24 during the WhatsNew2Day Indian of the Year award.
The expected cost is an estimated ₹1.08 lakh crore, of which the Center has committed to provide ₹10,000 crore, while Gujarat and Maharashtra will contribute ₹5,000 crore each. The remaining financing will be secured through a loan from Japan – at an interest rate of at least 0.1 percent.