Indian Railways and Vande Bharat/Train 18

 

Even as I write this blog, the third rake of Train 18 has been turned out of Integral Coach Factory (ICF), after a much-publicized visit by the Minister of Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, fashioned as an inspection and not a grand unveiling or launch ceremony. The rake is now under extensive testing by Research, Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO) of Indian Railways (IR) with a view to putting it on line as the third Vande Bharat express and I understand that the tests are going on at a great speed, understandably following a directive of the Minister to do so. It is nearly four years since the first rake was unveiled with much ballyhoo in October 2018 with palpable excitement among ICF staff and yes, their families.

 

For the unveiling of the first train in 2018, I had arranged for a trumpet call panoply on purpose as the team had worked hard and they deserved to let go. As their leader, I afforded a picnic for them to move in the train and take proud selfies with their spouses and children. Dignitaries from Indian Railways, Press and Media were present in large numbers during the spectacle. By the time the train was turned out and travelled to Delhi in a protective burlap, it was already being hailed as a symbol of resurgent India, a unique development of indigenous technology, not merely manufactured in India but also conceptualized and designed by Indian engineers. Not only was I flooded with requests for interviews by leading channels and newspapers, which I mostly complied, I was happy to see many from the team appearing with a comment or two in the national media.

 

Let us look at the scenario for trains. IR has made sensational departure from the beaten path by calling bids for more than Rs. 50000 cr. for private or public parties to manufacture two hundred Vande Bharat equivalent trains, one hundred Aluminium train sets and another hundred Aluminium push-pulls trains in IR’s factories and workshops. This regime does have a gold credentials in tackling huge rolling stock tenders; IR recently ordered its biggest ever contract for acquisition of nearly 75000 wagons at approx. Rs 25000 cr. The rolling stock industry is, therefore, pretty upbeat that these tenders would be finalized in the current fiscal itself. In addition to these 400 trains, another 100 odd trains are already ordered on IR’s factories, mainly, ICF, and third rake which was turned out of ICF is a part of this order.

 

There is no use talking about the deteriorating financial health IR as the government has committed to invest heavily, inter alia, in rolling stock, secure in the premise that that improved rail infrastructure is a prerequisite to build a firm foundation for logistics in the economy as a whole and, at least, in the short term, dissecting IR’s financial health in isolation would be self-defeating. It is also expected that there would be spin off benefits of these investments in boosting crucial sectors like Steel, Cement, Aluminium, Electronics etc. and generating employment.

 

As the creator of the first train, as the leader of the wonderful team of ICF, it is naturally a proud moment for me. Undoubtedly. But there are questions which need to be addressed. I have called these out frequently, even as I am aware that some of you would see them as a spoilsport speak, but ask I must, because too much is at stake for well-being of the project. Unlike Hamlet, ‘to ask or not to ask, that is not the question’, I should only hope that nobody doubts my credentials there. Answers may, or may not, be forthcoming but it would be foolhardy to ignore these questions.

 

The current average speed of Vande Bharat is 95 kmph between Varanasi and Delhi so will this new-gen. train do Mumbai-Ahmedabad at more than 100 kmph average speed, cutting down the travel time to well below 5 hours? The specification was tweaked by RDSO, ostensibly to increase the acceleration and improve the ride index, never mind that this delayed the project by years. So, this question. Also, will the ride improve over that for the first rake, which was hailed as decidedly superior to LHB coaches by the travelling public? In my view, this were red herrings, trying to fix things which were not broken, as proven by successful service of the first two trains.

 

Is this all about a large number of splashy and lushy trains cantering or galloping across the country or something more significant? Matching upgradation of tracks to 160 kmph has been announced off and on, most recently in 2017 when works were sanctioned for Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah sectors but the progress is excruciatingly slow. It is baffling that the later lot of 200 Aluminium trains would have speed capability of 200 kmph. IR does not even have the tracks to test these trains at the required 220 kmph, let alone operationalise them at 200kmph. Design of trains, like any other engineered product, are optimized for a range of actual operation and this would unnecessarily optimize the product for a speed range the train would not see at least for a decade, while pushing up its cost unnecessarily.

 

If the 220 kmph design is aimed at a demonstrative project, would it not have been better if ICF was engaged to do it and be ready for future? A small lot of trains, say five or so, capable of 200 km/h operation, future-ready, designed and manufactured by Indian engineers would have been such a boost for Atmanirbhar Bharat and it is very much feasible, given that ICF would have the luxury of freedom from a pressure of tight deadline.

 

Where will you run all these Day trains? More than hundred such trains will be rolled out of ICF, and perhaps a small number from RCF and MCF, in around two years from now; this may not exactly meet the latest hype of 75 trains in next one year but that is not material as even this pace of manufacture would be quite laudable. Considering that we have only around 25 Shatabdis and perhaps an equal number of faster inter-city day trains, the balance rakes are likely to be assigned to insignificant OG pair of trains and that would be a gross under-utilization.

 

So what follows is, where is the Sleeper version of Train 18? Work was started on the Sleeper version in 2018. Why is ICF not pursuing it anymore? When will the first Vande Bharat Rajdhani be a reality? The large tender of for two hundred Vande Bharat equivalent trains is for Sleeper version but ICF can easily put a Sleeper version prototype faster than that, say by mid-2023, and ICF should be challenged to do this design early, say, as Train 23.

 

Will future trains, to be built by private builders in IR’s factories, be such as we would be proud of? Perhaps, but an even larger question is about true self-reliance; the bidders are not required to commit their design work in India, whether through meaningful Transfer of Technology (ToT) or more importantly, through genuine partnership with Indian manufactures like ICF. The aim for a large aspirational country like ours cannot be to become a mere factory of modern trains. In all the hype about Atmanirbhar Bharat, have we forgotten that its broader vision necessarily included design in India as well? Japan, and later China, became a global force in engineering, not by merely manufacturing someone else’s designs but by gradually generating their own designs. China started out with similar investments in rolling stock in early 2000s in partnership with all the global rolling stock majors. Within a decade, however, CRRC, their state-owned, publicly-traded rolling stock manufacturer, has become the world's largest, leaving major competitors like Alstom and Siemens far behind. Unless the winner companies are mandated to open large design establishments at, or near ICF, for collaborative designs with Indian engineers, such a path for Indian train brands would be a remote one.

 

Have we reached world-class with Vande Bharat express? No, what Train 18 has achieved is near world-class and many issues remain to be addressed to turn out a truly world-class product. India has reached a stage where we have to churn out world-class trains, conceptualized, designed, engineered and manufactured in India in coming years by ICF and other Indian manufacturers, not just modern trains designed by brains sitting outside India and merely put together locally.

 

Are there some countries ready to import Vande Bharat equivalent trains from us? You would have heard of news reports that India is looking to export Train 18. That is good, but have we done the ground work for that? A natural question from a likely recipient would be as to how many we run in our country. Only two and such an ambition? We should first run twenty trains successfully for a year in India, tweak the design of deficiencies and then present a world-class product. Then and then only can this pipe-dream of export to middle-income countries can become a reality.

 

Will ICF continue to be a pariah for our Metro and RRTS organizations, dominated by multi-nationals? A thinking in this direction, rising beyond the words of the present Atmanirbhar policy but focussing on its spirit, must start now. A case in point is the field of Metro trains in which we have invested lakhs of crores since the year 2000 but India is nowhere near being the owner of a Metro train product of its own; while this failure can be explained away by citing separate and segmented purchases without a central plan, in the case of IR, and the massive leverage it has now established in the market, this excuse doesn’t hold water because of its centralised purchase machinery and a long term, large volume plan.

 

We need not emulate China, or Japan for that matter, but a whole lot of examples are there for us to learn from. Such massive investment must aim to make our country a global powerhouse in design and manufacture of trains, with an ambition to have a footprint in developed and medium-income level countries. This would take India in the next league, far beyond the ambit of our present exports, which are limited to poorer countries and that too against Indian Line of Credit.

 

Aspirational India has a burgeoning pool of capable engineers and we have to tweak the policies to make sure that their inherent energy is harnessed to give us trains we can be truly proud of.

 

…