Training session for railway officials on high-speed trains

Training sessions and lectures on the high-speed railway were organised for the Indian Railway officials at IIT Kharagpur after government planned to introduce such corridors across the country.
A short-term course was initiated last week by the International Summer and Winter Term (ISWT) programme, where four international faculty members from University of Illinois and University of Tokyo along with IIT faculty gave lectures on high speed rail system.
India is currently considering two corridors for high speed trains.
While Japan is conducting the feasibility study for the bullet train project in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, China will do the same for the Delhi-Chennai route expected to begin by early next year.

"The course had 40 participants mainly from Indian Railways and Railway PSUs," In-charge of the Centre for Railway Research at the IIT, Prof Subhransu Roy said.
The Centre for Railway Research at IIT-Kgp is fully funded by the Indian Railways for research collaboration and training of manpower.

T C Kao, former Vice-president of Taiwan High Speed Rail Project, taught Indian Railway officials how to plan and construct high-speed trains.
Although the basic elements of high-speed technology resembles that of conventional rail transport, there are engineering design differences in rolling stock as well as civil infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels and viaducts, they said.

It requires a specialised system of dedicated tracks to run trains built to travel at least 250 km per hour and advanced technology for communication, safety monitoring and maintenance, he said.
Roy said the 2015 summer ISWT program would be on heavy haul as Indian Railways is planning to increase its freight load capacity.
"Recognised experts from universities abroad will be invited to teach on how the load can be increased. We will need to work on tracks, wagon, locomotives and others," he said.