NEW DELHI: India will manufacture indigenous high-speed or bullet trains with a design speed of 350 kmph (B35) by 2030, matching Japan’s next-generation E10 series trains that are scheduled for production the same year, according to the railway ministry’s Cabinet proposal seeking approval for the revised cost of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) project.Cabinet has approved the revised cost of the project at over Rs 2 lakh crore, nearly double the original estimate prepared in 2015, and the expenditure of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore escalated cost will come from budgetary support.TOI has learnt that the ministry informed the Cabinet it has initiated the process to develop B35 trains after the Japanese side conveyed in Dec 2024 that production of existing E5 series trains was being phased out. It mentions that Japan indicated that production of E10 trains would begin in 2030 and they would be ready for operations by 2034. Officials said deployment of E10 trains would be explored when they become available.The ministry has said that manufacturing of indigenous B28 high-speed trains has been taken up and India will also develop its own Bharat Train Control System (BTCS). The move mirrors China’s indigenous CTCS signalling and train control system, which manages speed, spacing and safety across conventional and high-speed rail networks.As per the ministry, sharp increase in project cost from earlier Rs 1.1 lakh crore is largely due to a more than three-fold rise in land acquisition cost to about Rs 19,700 crore; a nearly 50% increase in infrastructure cost to over Rs 1 lakh crore, and around 100% escalation in spending on trains and signalling systems compared with the 2015 estimate.
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The current cost of the project, excluding future Japanese trains, works out to around Rs 399 crore per km.Initially, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor will operate with B28 trains having a design speed of 280 kmph, while their maximum operating speed will be “249 kmph”. BEML has received contracts to manufacture 32 B28 trains.Two prototype trains are expected to be ready for trial runs in the first quarter of 2027. BEML informed the BSE on Friday that it has received a separate Rs 5,400-crore contract to manufacture 15 additional B28 trains. The full 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor is targeted for completion by Dec 2030.
