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India’s bullet train
The desi version of bullet train is all set to hit the rails, pending a nod from the Railway Ministry.
BY OUR TECH CORRESPONDENT
19 June, 2005: The train will cover the Delhi-Agra stretch of 325 miles in just one and a half hours. The Shatabdi Express train will then proceed to Bhopal at a speed of 120 kilometres per hour.
The necessary clearances have been obtained and only the final nod has to be received for the run. Shatabdi Express trains, introduced in India in 1998 to commemerate the 100th birth anniversary of country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, are envisioned to be fast trains between cities with relatively shorter distance like Chennai-Bangalore, Mumbai-Pune etc, with limited stops.
Railways now run 13 Shatabdi Expresses. The above mentioned New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi connecting the capital city with the capital of Madhya Pradesh is the fastest train in he country.
The train was also the first Shatabdi, though it was then only till Jhansi. It was later extended to Bhopal.
The Indian Railways transports 4.2 billion passengers and over 300 million tones of freight on a stretch of 108,706 kilometres of track. The state-run railway network is also the world’s largest commercial employer, with a staff strength of 1.6 million regular employees.
The world's fastest train is probably Maglev, short for magnetic levitation, in China. This train can reach a top speed of 430 kilometres per hour (260 miles) in just under two minutes. Maglev is a train that floats on an electromagnetic cushion, which is propelled along a guideway at incredible speeds. Maglev technology is expensive. A mile of its track would cost at least £3.5m, excluding the cost of electricity sub stations.
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