Railways start Talgo trials after 3-week gap

MUMBAI: The Indian railway resumed trials on Wednesday of the Talgo train between Delhi and Mumbai after a gap of three weeks. It will conduct trials of the Spanish

MUMBAI: The Indian railway resumed trials on Wednesday of the Talgo train between Delhi and Mumbai after a gap of three weeks. It will conduct trials of the Spanish nine-coach train at speeds of 140kmph and 150 kmph.

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Railway officials said the 140kmph trial has already begun.

Railway ministry spokesperson Anilkumar Saxena said the train departed from New Delhi at 2.45pm on Wednesday and was expected to reach Mumbai Central station at 2.57am on Thursday — a travel time of 12 hours and 12 minutes.

Currently, the Rajdhani Express is the fastest train on Delhi-Mumbai route. It takes about 15.50 hours to cover the distance between the two cities.

“The last and final trial will be carried out on Saturday,” he said, adding that the train will depart from New Delhi at 2.45pm and is expected to reach Mumbai at 2.29am.

According to railway sources, fresh trials are being conducted to ascertain certain technical parameters while the train negotiates curvatures at high speeds.

Railway authorities had originally planned four trials — two at 130kmph, one at 140 kmph and one at 150kmph. But because of some undisclosed reason, authorities postponed the 150kmph trial last month.

Railway had conducted the last speed trial at 130ph on August 12. However, the train was delayed by more than 30 minutes during last trial, due to a cattle run over incident in Ratlam division of Western railway.

Before the speed trials, authorities conducted various other trials such as oscillation tests, emergency breaking tests, stability tests, among others between Moradabad-Bareilly and Palwal-Mathura. Talgo clocked highest speed of 180kmph during the Palwal-Mathura trials — the fastest a train has travelled on Indian soil.