A bullet in the head?

Prime Ministers of India and Japan, Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe laid the foundation stone for a high speed train, called Shinkansen in Japan, between Sabarmati in Gujarat and Mumbai in Maharashtra, yesterday. The train will have top speeds of 320-350 km per hour and is expected to reduce the traveling time to 2-3 hour from 7-8 hours at present. There will be two versions of the train - the High Speed one will take 2.58 hours to cover the distance, stopping at 12 stations on the way, and a Rapid High Speed one which will take 2.07 hours and stop at fewer stations. We can leave the cost of the project to economists but we would like to know what its average speed is going to be. At present the fastest train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is a Duronto Express which is able to maintain an average speed of 78 km per hour with no stop. A train running at high speed needs a long time to slow down and get up to full speed after a stop, so its average speed will fall with so many stops. The train is to carry 750 passengers in 10 cars, which means 75 passengers in every car. At present the chair car in Shatabdi has 67 seats, while the Executive car has 46 seats, so the bullet train will be a little cramped. The safety record of the Railways is very poor, with 5 trains derailed last month alone. This despite, or maybe because of, having 1,33 million employees, sucking up most of the earnings of the Railways. Even so the Railways claim to need 217,000 more staff for maintenance work. Imagine the number of deaths if a bullet train, traveling at 350 km, derails. Hence, a dedicated track is going to be built just for this train and 4,000 staff will be trained in Japan. Japan is to offer Master's degrees in running trains. Naturally, these people will expect higher salaries and the present staff will go on strike demanding the same salaries. We can expect a lot of fun. Last year A Minter advised against building a high-speed rail system, citing the example of China which is finding that running and maintenance costs are very high. Researching the history of the Shinkansen network in Japan, S Vadukut wrote that Japan planned the system as far back as 1930 and work began during the war. After the war land became cheap and Japan utilised the unfinished construction work, stopped because of the war, for the first train to start running on 1 October 1964. That is vision. Unfortunately, India has always planned for poverty, so our roads, electricity, railways are all decrepit. To break even, 160,000 people have to travel on these trains everyday. Number of passengers on the Delhi Metro fell by 150,000 per day when the fare was increased from Rs 8 to Rs 10. At ticket costs of Rs 3,000-5,000 wouldn't people prefer to fly? All that is for the future, but at least all this show will help in Gujarat assembly elections at the end of the year. Thanks to Japan.