Chinese trains for Mumbai metro

Mumbai’s future metro commuters will be riding trains made-in-China. A state-run newspaper in Beijing reported on Tuesday that a train manufacturing company in the eastern boomtown of Nanjing has dispatched 18 six-carriage subway trains to Mumbai in a reported $110 million deal finalised in 2008.

Mumbai’s future metro commuters will be riding trains made-in-China.

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A state-run newspaper in Beijing reported on Tuesday that a train manufacturing company in the eastern boomtown of Nanjing has dispatched 18 six-carriage subway trains to Mumbai in a reported $110 million deal finalised in 2008.

Each compartment is designed to hold 390 passengers.

“The trains were China’s first-ever export of A-type subway trains, which were wider than 3 meters and had greater passenger capacity than other models,” Qian Houkuan, a director of information and technology at CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock Works, was quoted saying in the China Daily.

The shipment will reach from Shanghai to Mumbai after a month.

The official was quoted saying the trains are designed to cruise at a maximum 80 kmph speed and withstand temperatures up to 55 degrees Celsius and 100 per cent humidity.

By 2013, China is set to have the world’s biggest high-speed railway network and 800 bullet trains, both built in collaboration with foreign know-how.

No other nation is expanding its railway network like China where 33,000 km of high-speed train tracks are being built. Chinese railway equipment has been exported to over 30 nations, said the People’s Daily.

The US has also approached Beijing to buy Chinese high-speed railway technology.