AMID uncertainty about the signalling system and the rolling stock to be deployed on the under-construction and Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica)-funded Mumbai - Ahmedabad high-speed line, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is expected to attempt to end the stalemate during his planned visit to Tokyo in mid-August.
Disagreements between Indian and Japanese engineers, coupled with external factors, are threatening to further delay and add to the cost of the project which is already five years late, while costs have ballooned from the original estimate of Rs 980bn ($US 11.89bn) to Rs 2 trillion.
According to official announcements, the project will be completed in 2029, but experts believe that it is unlikely that commissioning will happen before 2031, with commercial operations following as late as 2033. The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), the government agency responsible for delivering the project, informed a parliamentary standing committee in March that a reliable completion timeline or final cost could not be provided
Construction delays have occurred because of unusual factors, including China’s reluctance to permit shipment of the three tunnel boring machines (TBM) required for construction of the critical 21km tunnel in Mumbai that includes that includes a 7km undersea section beneath Thane Creek. While 5km of the tunnel has been completed using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM), TBMs with a cutter head diameter of 13.6m will be required to construct the remaining 16km.
The TBMs were ordered from Herrenknecht, which has built them at its facility in Guangzhou in China. However, the Chinese government has reportedly prohibited their shipment, imposing a number of conditions on India before allowing delivery. These relate to concerns that the TBMs might subsequently be used by India for projects unrelated to civil engineering.
Signalling disagreements
While 50% of civil engineering work on the Mumbai - Ahmedabad high-speed line has been completed, disagreements between Indian and Japanese engineers do not bode well for the remainder of the project. For the signalling system, Japan has been insisting on the leaky feeder or radiating cable technology used on Shinkansen lines. Yet NHSRCL recently moved ahead in awarding a seven-year contract to supply a transitional signalling system to a joint venture of DRA and Siemens. This system, based on ETCS Level 2 technology, will act as an interim solution until the final system is adopted, officials say.
“This is a rather bizarre move, as it would mean the Mumbai - Ahmedabad high-speed line will be operated using parallel signalling systems, which India appears to be still evaluating and adapting. This can only result in higher costs”, says former Indian Railways (IR) general manager, Sudhanshu Mani.
Fleet issues
With approximately 80% of project funding coming from Jica, India will find it difficult to reject the Japanese offer to supply a Shinkansen fleet for the new line at roughly double the price on the international market. Especially now that Japan has, perhaps rather cleverly, agreed to provide free of change a second-hand series E3 and a series E5 high-speed train to enable trials on the 50km test section between Surat and Bilimora to proceed without delay, as India would otherwise have no high-speed rolling stock to run on its newly-completed infrastructure.
However, if India does eventually decide to buy new Shinkansen trains, these would be required to be modified to operate with the ETCS that NHSCRL has ordered. Alternatively, India could choose to operate indigenously-manufactured high-speed trains at speeds of up to 250km/h, significantly slower than the Shinkansen’s top speed of 350km/h.
Last year NHSRCL awarded a contract to state-owned Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) to manufacture two prototype trains with a top speed of 280km/h and a design speed of 250km/h, and they are now expected to be delivered by 2029. Japan has made it clear that the series E10 Shinkansen that is still under development cannot be delivered to India before 2030, as orders for Japanese railways will take precedence. Nevertheless, NHSRCL officials are hopeful that Modi will be able to find a way out of the maze during his visit to Tokyo.
