Speed thrills

Faster, higher, stronger” may be the Olympic motto. It applies to mankind in general too, engineering technocrats in particular. Getting the renowned magnetic levitation train to travel at a record speed of 603 km per hour in a test run in Japan is another feather in the cap of the eternal human endeavour to do better than they ever did before. But, before we start dreaming of travelling by a desi version of Shinkansen or its equivalent to cover the distance between New Delhi and Mumbai in two hours, consider the cost at which such luxuries as speed comes. The 280-km line between Tokyo and Nagoya is expected to cost around `63,000 crore, and even the Japanese are trying to sell the technology to build a line between New York and Washington to defray their costs. Also, passengers may never get to enjoy those speeds since 500 kmph is a sort of safety threshold engineers are trying to set for now.

It is exciting to think of the speeds at which passenger trains are travelling in Japan, China and France, and doing so every day with an excellent safety record. Compare that to the accident rates on Indian Railways even at average speeds of 80 kmph and we can gauge the magnitude of problems in delivering safe speeds. Our priorities would have to do with delivering millions of passengers safely, and in comfort, across our densest railway routes at a frequency that would put an end to crowding. But who is to stop us from dreaming that one day bullet trains will be running in India too?