Gowda announces diamond quadrilateral network

In keeping with its election promise, the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday announced the first bullet train in the Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor and a network of 'diamond quadrilateral' for high speed trains connecting major centres of the country.

In keeping with its election promise, the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday announced the first bullet train in the Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor and a network of 'diamond quadrilateral' for high-speed trains connecting major centres of the country.

Railway minister DV Sadananda Gowda, presenting his maiden budget in Parliament, set aside Rs 100 crore for the purpose.

"It is the dream of every Indian that India runs a bullet train. I announce a bullet train for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line."

"It was the vision of our great leader AB Vajpayee that gave us our golden quadrilateral.. today under the leadership of Sri Narendra Modiji, we are embarking on an ambitious plan to initiate diamond quadrilateral of high-speed trains connecting major growth metro centres of the country," he said.

Read:Gowda launches 58 trains in rail budget, proposes FDI to overhaul infrastructure

While the bullet trains, the minister said, would require completely new infrastructure, higher speed for existing trains will be achieved by upgrading the present network.

The indication to the announcement had come much before the rail budget when the railway minister last month had made a presentation to the Prime Minister, envisaging the possibility of getting high-speed train sets on lease from the Japanese, French or German vendors.

According to the proposal, two train sets (costing between Rs. 170 and Rs 300 crore a piece) will be purchased to provide India the quantum technological jump that it needs to fulfill its ambition of joining the high-speed club.

These sets capable of clocking 300-350 km per hour can also run at a speed of 130 km per hour on existing tracks to reduce the travel time between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi Howrah by an estimated three hours.

Bullet train

Mumbai-Ahemdabad corridor

High-speed trains

Delhi-Agra
Delhi-Chandigarh
Delhi-Kanpur
Nagpur-Bilaspur
Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai
Mumbai-Goa
Mumbai-Goa
Mumbai-Ahmedabad
Chennai-Hyderabad
Nagpur-Secunderabad