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>Currently the travel time between Mumbai and Howrah is over 26 hours in Duronto express and it is expected to be reduced to less than half with the operation of the proposed high-speed train.
>Railways had signed an MoU with Spain in 2012 for cooperation in high-speed rail sector and under the MoU the study will be undertaken, said the official.
>At present, China is undertaking feasibility study of the Delhi-Chennai route, also a part of the Diamond Quadrilateral project.
>Moving ahead on the bullet train initiative, railway have undertaken feasibility study for high-speed rail corridors between Delhi and Mumbai, Mumbai and Chennai, and New Delhi and Kolkata, which are part of the Diamond Quadrilateral project.
>The official said 12 international companies from France, Germany, Italy and other countries are bidding for conducting the feasibility study for these three corridors of the Diamond Quadrilateral high-speed rail network project.
https://archive.is/8FHEF
Howah is a suburb of Kolkata. It can also be called a industrial district and has much cultural history.
Chennai is a powerful cultural and educational location with many higher educational institutions within.
>If work begins in 2017, the line can be completed in 2023 and made operational in 2024, it is projected.
>After the study of the financial feasibility of the line, the final report suggests the fare of the bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad may be somewhere around one and half times more than the fare of the first AC of Rajdhani Express and it would be around Rs 2,800.
>It is estimated that by 2023 around 40,000 passengers are expected to avail this service everyday and accordingly it would be a financially viable service.
>Besides JICA, SNFC of France has already carried out a feasibility study of the route and has submitted the business model to the ministry.
>The Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor is expected to enable trains to run at a top speed of 350 kmph.
>From the initial estimated cost of Rs 65,000 crore, it has gone up after taking into account various factors like price escalation and interest.
>According to the official, Japanese government has offered to fund the project at a low interest rate. However, the loan offer comes with the rider that 30 per cent of the rolling stock for the project would be sourced from Japanese firms.
>The Japanese agency has suggested that the line be constructed on the internationally accepted "standard gauge", as against certain opinion in the Railways that the "broad gauge" option be considered since India''s main line train operation is based on this gauge only.
https://archive.is/ZmlR0
https://archive.is/OC0GI
