More on Uzbek trains & Vande Bharat If abusing me helps, by all means!

More on Uzbek trains & Vande Bharat

If abusing me helps, by all means!

Sudhanshu Mani

Readers might remember my previous blog post about the Uzbek High-Speed Talgo trains and our own sordid story of dallying with Talgo trains:

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2023/11/talgo-trains-in-uzbekistan-much-faster.html

and

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2021/06/talgo-and-indias-quest-for-modern-train.html

 

I outlined their stations and trains briefly but the key emphasis was that while theirs is a much smaller railway system than ours and they do not manufacture their own rolling stock, they have been running High-Speed imported Talgo trains on their upgraded tracks since 2011 and there might be one or two things for us to study and learn, particularly in respect of the infra upgrade. 

 

This is a follow up blog post but why?

 

Because this blog registered more than 25000 hits which is not something that I can claim for most of the blog posts written by me.

 

And because I thought my advice was rather innocuous and many reasonable voices resonated with my perspective or criticized the blog but with due respect to my opinion. As expected, the discourse in the country being such now-a-days, amidst these, a barrage of dissenting voices too emerged, choosing to disagree, patronize, ridicule, troll, and even abuse me. I know that many of these guys are arm chair argumentative Indians, who would give a knee jerk reaction without even reading th blog or at least catching the essence of what I wrote. These continue to dribble on X, LinkedIn and the blog itself.

 

So, unlike Cade in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 2, I have no desire to make see these carping individuals "...eat iron like an ostrich and, swallow my sword like a great pin." Instead, I invite the saner readers to enjoy the amusing reactions of these inhabitants of a fool's paradise who have buried their heads in the sand like ostriches. As Gray said, they are more to be pitied than censured but do read these comments (reproduced nearly verbatim in blue after I attempted to correct the English but it was not easy 😀), with my occasional tongue in cheek rejoinders and enjoy:

 

First those wish to teach me about Vande Bharat (VB):

 

They don't have people throwing stones at their trains either nor do they have people thinking VB like trains is waste of money. BTW, 150 kmph is not much faster. After reading your tweet I thought they have trains compared to Eurostar.

 

It's possible here too, provided Indian railways build better rail tracks like them. Every Indian train pilot knows that if they run at those higher speeds, the chances of derailment are high. Even the bullet train will do the same speed as VB when launched.

 

I understand Talgo had set a very high price for its trains in India. Hence we came up with our own version.

 

True sir, but they DIDN'T make any of them, they're oil/hydrocarbon rich economies.. With erstwhile Soviet support.. We cannot compare the tech hurdles we continue to face with Uzbekistan or any of the central Asian countries also.

 

So basically get Talgo ditch VB. As VB speed can't be utilized properly, and next gen VB most likely are either not coming or will be too late bcz of our slow system.

 

Dude not all train their run like this , VB can run up to 180-200 (Aluminium one) but sir above 160 u need different signaling, problem with IR is old infra. it will take more than 1 trillion USD to change it and government has plan to change it till 2034.

 

Buying trains from another countries one this...its easiest way...but making it locally is another thing...of course we are new to high speed trains....we shud learn from China than looking to an import depending nation.

 

Are those Talgos Spanish or Uzbek? Should India abandon its self-reliance goals and import?

 

Vande Bharat is one of the best things that have ever happened to our country for a long time. Kudus to the present government headed by a truly selfless and visionary Prime Minister. No need of comparing this with other nations as I for myself never imagined I would travel in such classy trains which we have earlier seen in developed western countries. Don't try to reply to such morons who are always trying to score Brownie points to satisfy their inflated egos!

 

IT is partnership between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan it runs between two countries, And Vande Bharat is only Made in India, Also if u have any shame then make by your own for country. Instead of pointing government try to make by own for the nation if u are true country citizen.

 

Why ditch Vande Bharat? We may study their track upgrade...

(this fellow obviously did not read the blog at all 😀)

 

It is amusing how some individuals who claim expertise on VB, whether it's about the team behind it or its leadership, often assert it as the pinnacle of excellence while condescendingly lecturing others about it. Many among them seem to embrace a misconstrued, popular yet false perspective regarding Talgo trains. They did not taken the time to peruse the link to my blog on Talgo and failed to acknowledge that a 150 kmph average speed, surpassing the best of VBs by 1.5 times, is indeed a noteworthy achievement. It's perplexing when these individuals, lacking adequate information, fail to realize that the creation of VB was entirely independent of the sordid narrative surrounding Talgo trains in India. Talgo wasn't a determining factor in our decision-making process. Additionally, precluding our technical challenges from comparisons, in this case with Uzbekistan or any Central Asian nation, is a standard bureaucratic excuse. They ignore that I have never disparaged my own creation, VB; rather, I highlighted its speed to underscore its untapped potential. And then the supreme joker who would teach this ‘dude’ about a non-existent Aluminium VB.

Then those who were, I think, upset that Uzbekistan has HSR so they must defend Indian Railways:

For high-speed trains the key requirement is suitable tracks. We have busiest railway network, high density of population. replacing/upgrading tracks without hampering the trains already running is very difficult, still govt is doing the same.

 

Uzbekistan was a part of USSR, hence they were entitled to many facilities developed by the then Russian union. In India, the trains can run at faster speeds, but the old tracks does not support them. Indian railway network is the biggest in the world. It's difficult to change all railway tracks at once. This government is at least trying to modernize the Indian railway network, stations, reservation system, work culture and trains. Uzbekistan has just 1 such route. Tashkent Samarkand Bukhara! Background of the work done in last decade, we are taking about railway development here. Previous years, we only spoken about corruption, accidents, unhygienic conditions, delays etc.

 

Talgo wanted to make trains for Indian Railways as well. Had that been successful, we could have such fast trains as well. Perhaps it was a strategic decision to go for indigenous Vande Bharat trains. Maybe both trains could have worked parallelly in India.

 

For a country like India which largely remains "fare sensitive" deployment of huge capex becomes an issue . Not very sur , but looking at past few years I think govt is first setting signal system perfect and then they would look into track upgrades.

 

Do they carry similar number of passengers as we do?

 

Then what’s there to learn from them if they don’t make anything ?

 

If they don't design or make their own trains, what can we learn from them? How to Import trains?

 

Their tracks are hardly fenced. A cow was run over in the train you were traveling in The train frequency is not high The coaches are congested. Vande Bharat is wider Talgo is faster with a top speed of 200 kmph. Vande Bharat with a speed of over 200 kmph is under development.

 

Before train we need rail line. How many buffalo and cow have you seen on track in Uzbekistan?

 

Maybe you do not know about Diamond Quadrilateral and MAHSR, Once operational in 2030, the MAHSR will pull India to the finger list of nations with 300+kmph railway line.

 

So you must also compare with totality of all aspects. IR moves entire population of Australia every single day. And then run Vande Bharat in those constraints. Appreciate man. If not then keep quiet.

 

LJL, yeah Uzbekistan is an exception in that region and you can actually take trains to the 4 major tourist towns but wtf is your point? That have just those lines, it’s not a major system and they had to import everything. Anyway, lots of ex USSR countries have good infra

 

Indian trains actually can exceed 180kms but our track infrastructure is incapable of managing such speeds . Vande Bharat can barely cross 100kms speed.

 

Sir, First of all I will request you to know the difference between high speed trains and Vande Bharat trains. As a Ex-railway person i think you might have idea about that. For high speed trains there is special track requirement, where trains can run more that 250-300kmph. Compared to them we have built Vande Bharat trains which can run on our existing railway track system. If you want to know more about High speed trains, please visit NHSRCL website. The one you visited in Uzbekistan is semi high speed only.

 

Sir please consider the geographical conditions of our country and theirs. Also the dense populated area where railways cannot build gates track system everywhere. What our country has done is for the best of all. Instead of comparing, we should be happy with what changed in last decade.

 

It's a small rail system when compared with Indian rail system. With many interjection and crossovers and no of goods trains operated, comparing it with Indian rlys is ridiculous and prejudiced

 

Vande Bharat has restricted speed due to railway tracks, need improvement and plz do not compare India with Turkmenistan, since we manage more than twelve thousand trains every day to ply.

 

It appears that many individuals reacted solely based on the headline, consumed that they are by their strong but pompous sense of self-righteousness.  It is important to clarify that while IR (Indian Railways) isn't the largest or busiest network globally, it stands only as the fourth largest. We are yet to upgrade even one large section to 160 kmph.

 

The pace of IR’s modernization might differ in perception among various people but nevertheless rather than engaging in debates over this, my main intent was to analyze how the Uzbeks fenced and fortified their tracks for 250 kmph operation and initiated High-Speed Rail (HSR) at a remarkably lower cost compared to other nations. There may or may not be a potential to gain insights from their methods and possibly adopt or adapt some practices for our own benefit but there is harm in studying it. 

 

It is laughable that that some overlooked the details, particularly the incident involving a cow on a non-HSR track; this oversight seemed to have skewed their understanding of the broader context; without bothering to read, they squirted some inanities.

 

And as we near the end, the most hilarious ones; including the abusive ones now; enjoyable because the stupidity of the writers is boundless:

 

We are designing ours and making our own means it will create more jobs. What a brainless fool. Our Vande Bharat trains can become a model in Africa also with less cost good looking and enough speed.

 

Those are all Chinese which in turn is stolen tech from the west

 

Kuch log kabhi bhi progressive nahi sochte. The difference between population of Uzbekistan and India

 

Our man went to nursery school wearing full pants. His first meal ever was goat biriyani.

 

I thought India had left behind "argument from authority"

 

Are you a Talgo agent ? We are satisfied with VB. The tracks are old and needs to be upgraded. VB is capable of touching 200Kms speed

 

Sir ji government ke paise se Kahan Gaye? China ya Japan. I do remember China and Japan trips for bigwigs funded on govt dime.

 

Don’t come back enjoy your life there. Ah

 

One more thing, if you’re the creator of both the trains than there are two cases either you learned from VB or Uzbeks have better engineer team!

 

Toh banane ke pahle Uzbek jane ka tha ab kya mc?

 

But u have to consider the fish plate removal and so many other aspects too, slow and steady wins the race. I replied that as per this slow and steady theory, we should not have created Train 18/VB and spang came this: That is you created near your retirement as per the above policy.

 

And this clown seems to have a lot of time to abuse others, thought of excluding it but then it takes all the idiots to make circus:

 

Since you built Vande Bharat trains, it's good you are taking responsibility for its multiple failures. However, calling everyone else who comments on your post as fools, while singing praises of the Uzbekistan railway makes you appear conceited and suffering from an inferiority complex. That too with Uzbekistan, a country most Indians have to Google to know whether it exists, or is another silly joke of yours. You really should've begged the PMO to give you the Padma Bhushan or other awards since you solely took the responsibility for all the failures of Vande Bharat, being the chief inventor/Chief Manager/Chief mistake maker or whatever. This would bolster your ego, and get you many subscribers for your youtube channels from people looking for a laugh. There are articles full of praise for Vande Bharat and how you are the father of VB. They notably mentions that the cost is half of imported trains and how VB beat trains in trials. It means you were either lying before r are lying now...please chose the one that’s correct. Were you really covering up the mistakes and uselessness of VB express hoping you would get a reward, and finding no reward was forthcoming, you're now as sore and miserable as you appear.

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