After going trough 15 pages and various endpoint views, i see why we are called a country of diversity
China Indeed did a great job by bring up HSR and that had helped them to grow further. At the same time China has worked very hard to improve its basic railway infrastructure where regular trains ply and which connects people. Its a mixed package. India also needs similar package, but is India ready for it at this moment of time, well yes and no.
India has it own set of challenges which are hard to find globally.
India needs HSR to connect business hubs, no two way about it, we saw the telecommunication revolution changed the business dynamics and in last 2 decades we have seen people have started moving, there is huge growth in public movement, be it intercity or be it within city. Indian railways has not been able to cope up with the huge influx of demand. The demand has raised in all sections, from general class to premium travellors. Under such circumstances, the best way to move forward is to build HSR to connect business centers initially and target the business travellors, who are more than willing to pay high price in order to save time. Thats why we see the first feasibility study of HSR is done for Mumbai - Ahmadabad. If we start today, its estimated that it would take 10yrs to get HSR running on that route, by that time both our economy and our transportation need will easily help us to sustain the cost of HSR.
On the other hand, India need to upgrade it basic railway infrastructure too. They have already started to doing these, but its taking its own time. Many railway stations are getting upgraded under PPP model, there are many citites where the cleaning and hygine maintenance is given to private player and we see branded food outlets on major railway stations.
Along with this railway has been upgrading its track to support speed upto 200kms, we have recently seen many test / demo rides on Agra - Delhi routes, where passenger trains with WAP-5 engines hit over 160km/hr speed and they will raise it to 200km/hr. Its easy and less costly to upgrade some of the existing routes like Delhi Kanpur, Delhi Chandigarh etc, where basic infrastructure is already there.
Once we have a dedicated freight way setup done, we would find much faster improvement in passenger carrying capacities and services along with it.
Overall I think Indian railway is improving and moving in right direction, but for sure they have pickup some galloping pace to increase the carrying capacity both in passenger and freight section.
As of now ticket booking experience on irctc or at railway counter on opening day is bitter experience than traveling in train.
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