Talgo train takes off from Delhi, expects to reach Mumbai in 12 hours

The train with nine lightweight coaches was flagged off at 7.55 pm from New Delhi station and is expected to reach Mumbai at about 8.31 am on Tuesday, covering the distance of 1384 km in less than 13 hours.

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Spanish-made train Talgo took off from New Delhi station here for its third and final phase of trials to Mumbai and is expected to reach the financial capital in about just 12 hours hitting a high speed of 130 kmph in the process.

The train with nine lightweight coaches was flagged off at 7.55 pm from New Delhi station and is expected to reach Mumbai at about 10:00 am on Tuesday, an official of the Northern Railway said.

The train had officials of Indian Railways and Spanish on board.

The train aims to cut the distance between Delhi-Mumbai to 12 hours, about 4 hours less than the time taken Rajdhani which covers the distance in about 16 hours.

On its return journey, the train will start on August 3 from Mumbai at 3 PM and will reach New Delhi the next day at 5 PM with the speed of 130 kmph.

However, on the second trial, the official said the train will start from here on August 5 at 7.55 PM at 140 km per speed and reach Mumbai next day at about 8.50 AM.

"This is the timing trial and we want to find out how much time it is likely to save if we allow such type of coaches to run on our track. Four such trials will take place with speed ranging from 130 kmph to 150 kmph," Railway Board Member (Mechanical) Hemant Kumar told PTI.

The third trial will be on August 9 and the fourth and final on August 14.

He said since the train is lighter, and takes lesser time for acceleration and deceleration on curves.

"This is our time trial. We had already done the safety trial between Palwal and Mathura where we had gone upto 180 kmph both loaded and empty run," he added.

The second trial between Delhi and Mumbai will also be at 130 kmph and in the third trial, the train will be allowed to run at a higher speed of 140 kmph.

"Then the fourth trial will be at 150 kmph with higher speed on the curves. We expect that it is likely to take 11 hours 30 minutes at 150 kmph to reach Mumbai," he said.

Railways had conducted the first trial run of Talgo trains on the Bareilly-Moradabad stretch in Uttar Pradesh in May. The second trial run was conducted on the Palwal-Mathura section of the North-Central Railway.

However, Kumar said the train cannot be used on Indian Railways in its present form.

"This has got lower platform height and in this form it cannot be used. After trial if we decide to go for it then we have to find ways and means as to how to go about it," he said. 

With PTI Inputs