AHMEDABAD, India/NEW DELHI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a third Indian-made high speed train in his home state of Gujarat, as a part of plans to modernise the country's rail network.
New Delhi plans to launch 75 of the Vande Bharat Express trains by August 2023 to connect all major industrial and business cities. The trains have a top speed of 180 kilometres per hour (kmh).
The average speed of Indian trains has remained around 50 kmh, and of freight trains around 25 kmh, hitting the state-owned railways' earnings, according to a national auditor's report in April.
The 16-coach Vande Express, with a capacity of 1,128 passengers, will provide a better experience for travellers even compared to flying, Modi said after the launch.
The latest train - with updated passenger facilities compared with the previous two launches - will connect India's financial capital Mumbai with Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat state, a senior railways official said.
Pathik Patwari, President of the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, welcomed the launch. "Many businessmen who do not travel much on trains due to long travel time will start travelling on the train now," he said.
The weight of the latest train has been reduced by 38 tonnes from earlier versions to 392 tonnes, ensuring a more comfortable ride, and it can continue functioning even in two feet water, officials said.
A spokesperson for Integrated Coach Factory, Chennai, which manufactured the train, told Reuters it was fully designed in India, with 80% local materials, and would cost about 11 billion rupees ($135 million).
He said the state-run factory aimed to produce at least 27 by March 2023, besides high-speed freight trains soon.
Indian Railways, which posted a fall in passenger earnings during two years of the pandemic, is on a path to recovery, with total revenues up 37% year-on-year to 964.3 billion rupees ($11.82 billion) in April-August.
Modi launches India-made high speed train in modernisation drive
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a third Indian-made high speed train in his home state of Gujarat, as a part of plans to modernise the country's rail network.
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Tata Steel to roll out 'First in India' seating system for Vande Bharat
Tata Group is planning to spend Rs 3,000 crore on R&D by FY26 and set to roll out the 'First in India' seating system for Vande Bharat Express trains from September 2022, a top official has said.
The steel-to-salt conglomerate is also targeting to be among the top 5 technology firms in the steel industry globally by 2030.
Tata Steel's Composites division bagged a Rs 145 crore bulk order for seating systems of the Vande Bharat express that includes the supply of complete seating systems for 22 train sets, with 16 coaches in each train set.
"These are specially designed seats, which can rotate 180 degrees and have aircraft-style passenger amenities. This is first-in-India' kind of a supply, which will be executed over 12 months starting September 2022," Debashish Bhattacharjee, Vice President, Technology & New Materials Business, Tata Steel, told PTI.
"Composites industry in India is dominated by institutional businesses and is largely dependent on infrastructure, industrial and railway sectors. One of the key initiatives of the composites business was to convert to Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) applications where steel is currently being used. Railways has been a promising customer for the FRP Composites business of Tata Steel."
The FRP used in the seats will have higher corrosion resistance and lower maintenance cost. Moreover, it will be conforming to the European standard of fire-retardant property, and will offer improved safety and comfort to passengers.
Vande Bharat Express, also known as Train 18, is the second fastest train in India, which operates at a speed of 130 km/hr.
The company is targeting to be among the 'Top 5 in technology in steel industry globally by 2030' and one of the key enablers for achieving technology leadership is a quick conversion of ideas into pilot testing and commercialisation, the company officials said.
"This requires adequate infrastructure and pilot scale facilities to test the hypothesis developed during lab-scale experiments. Expenditure plan for Tata Steel India research & development (R&D) for the next 5 years (FY22-26) is Rs 3,000 crore," the top official said.
Bhattacharjee said Tata Steel is setting up a greenfield facility to produce Sandwich panels.
"Tata Steel is setting up a greenfield facility at Khopoli, Maharashtra, in collaboration with a technology partner from the Netherlands.
"The facility will manufacture Aluminium honeycomb cored sandwich panels, which will be used mainly for interiors of rail and metro coaches. Key customers for the unit will be global metro and rail coach OEMs and also Indian Railways," he noted.
New Materials Business was set up with the vision to explore opportunities in materials beyond steel. FY2021-22 saw the completion of NMB's fourth year of operations, and currently, the business has three material verticals Composites, Graphene, and Medical Materials and Devices.
Tata Steel's composites business focuses on three market segments: industrial, infrastructure and railways.
For railways, the composites business of NMB has been leveraging Tata Group synergies by offering integrated solutions jointly with TM Automotive Seating Systems and Tata Autocomp Systems.
Tata Steel to roll out 'First in India' seating system for Vande Bharat; to spend Rs 3k cr on R&D
Tata Group is planning to spend Rs 3,000 crore on R&D by FY26 and set to roll out the 'First in India' seating system for Vande Bharat Express trains from September 2022, a top official has said. The steel-to-salt conglomerate is also targeting to be among the top 5 technology firms in the steel...
