Push-pull trains, a home-grown technology for faster trains, is in the final stages of roll-out after four years.
Push-pull trains have two engines, hard-wired to act as one, which provide additional power and reduce acceleration and deceleration times.
The first push-pull trains will be composed of non-air-conditioned coaches of General and Sleeper classes only.
The trains will have a maximum speed of 130 kmph and will have less detention time at stations, making for faster turnarounds.
The cost of a push-pull rake is estimated to be in the vicinity of Rs 50 crore.
A total of 10 such trains are slated to come out of the Indian Railways stables.
The Railways has always been hesitant to adopt new technologies like trainset and push-pull due to the high cost.However, the Modi government has somewhat broken that hesitancy by charging for a perceptibly upgraded and faster ride on the Vande Bharats.
Whether or not the political masters will bite the bullet and charge 10-15 per cent higher fares for the push-pull trains in an election year is to be seen.
Benefits of push-pull trains:
Faster acceleration and deceleration times
Less detention time at stations
Faster turnarounds
Challenges:
High cost
Need to convince political masters to charge higher fares
Overall, the push-pull train technology has the potential to revolutionize the way Indians travel by train. It will be interesting to see how the Railways implements this technology and how the public responds.
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