kinsr
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There are serious attempts to separate freight and passenger movement on different corridors of tracks supporting Higher Axle load (freight movement, DFC) and higher speed at ~20/21 Ton per axle load supporting Passenger tracks respectively.
India is forced to run very light freight trains (~3500-400 Tons per rake) owing to demand for higher running speed of freight trains so as they donot become bottleneck for passenger train running on same track. As a result a lot of freight trains are looped to allow passenger movement slowing down average speed of freight trains. this is a catch 22 situation, which DFC are trying to solve by allowing heavier trains at higher average speeds using HHP locos.
Second issue which you mentioned already that majority movement takes place on Golden quadrilateral is a case of deep worry. With one train lined up behind other, IR is finding little or no time to take up safety upgrades and routine maintenance which is getting reflected in spate of accidents recently.
We definitely need more roads but we will do well to plan bulk movement on rails by adding capacity.
Given a choice of fixed budget, i would put my money on upgrading rail line capacity for that gives me much higher return on equity and at lower cost of money and environment.
Great Post Anant Bhai... thanks a lot ... thats exactly my thoughts too. Why not spend heavily on railway networks, instead spending so much on 8-lanes Superhighways. It will require lesser land as compared to expansion of Roads Networks, thus keeping in check the cost component, other than that IR has already the largest land bank so they can do it easily without going into hassles of land acquisitions. For passenger traffic, why not convert the whole system to double decker coaches, which were trialled a while ago. India runs on Railways... India needs major investments in Railways.