Indian Railways' Mission Raftaar is still a distant mirage
- Jayant Chakravarti
- 3 days ago
- 13 min read
On March 1, 1969, Indian Railways announced the country's entry into the era of high-speed rail. On that evening, a shining new distinctive cream and crimson red-liveried express train chugged its way into New Delhi railway station. It was to shortly embark on a journey across peninsular India to the tip of the Bay of Bengal, covering a distance of 1,450 kilometres in 17 hours and 20 minutes.
The new Rajdhani Express replaced the AC Deluxe Express, now known as the Poorva Express, as the fastest train on the New Delhi-Howrah route. The maroon and cream-liveried AC Deluxe Express, introduced in 1956 as a premium fully-air-conditioned chair car train with a dining coach, used to cover the same distance in about 23 hours.
In 1972, the Railways rolled in another Rajdhani Express rake connecting New Delhi and Mumbai. Covering a distance of 1,386 kilometres in 19 hours, the new train replaced another AC Deluxe Express, now known as the Paschim Express, as the premier air-conditioned train, with the Deluxe Express trains on both routes beginning to feature non-air-conditioned sleeper coaches.
It took more than a decade to introduce two more Rajdhani Express trains connecting New Delhi with Bengaluru and Hyderabad, but by the turn of the millennium, Rajdhani Express trains connected the capital with Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati, Bilaspur and Ranchi. As of 2026, more Rajdhani Express trains are now connecting New Delhi with Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Sealdah, Jammu Tawi, Dibrugarh, Agartala and Sairang.
As the long-distance Rajdhanis became commonplace and in heavy demand, the railways began introducing high-speed short distance Shatabdi Express trains beginning 1988. These trains connected metropolitan cities with other capital stations within a distance of 500 kilometres, offering high speed commuting on busy routes where flight connectivity was sparce and expensive and bus journeys took considerable time. The New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express, India's fastest train on record, regularly clocks a top speed of 150 kilometres per hour. The railways presently runs 25 pairs of such trains across the country.
The bullet train is but a small trickle
With more than 65 years having passed since the railways ran its first Rajdhani Express, millions of commuters have begun wondering why the transportation giant has been unable to speed up its premier trains. For context, Chinese express trains did not cross top speeds of 100 kilometres per hour until the turn of the millennium. 25 years later, the country has more than 40,000 kilometres of high-speed tracks supporting speeds of up to 350 kilometres per hour.
The Indian Railways is just a couple of years away from commissioning its first high-speed rail corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Measuring 508 kilometres, the route will feature Japanese E5 Series Shinkansen train-sets running at maximum speeds of 300 kilometres per hour, as well as domestically-build trainsets with maximum operating speeds of 250 kilometres per hour.
But the 508-kilometre route is a tiny trickle of the railways' total route length exceeding 70,000 kilometres which makes it the fourth largest network in the world. More bullet train corridors are being considered, but given the amount of time that has lapsed in commissioning the first corridor, the time needed to construct 2,000 kilometres of high-speed tracks could take a couple of decades, if not more.
The public's attention is presently drawn to the two premium corridors - the ones connecting New Delhi and its adjoining stations with Howrah and Mumbai. Taken together, the two routes, measuring more than 2,800 kilometres, consist of 4% of the railways' route length but carry 29% of the passenger traffic.
The Howrah Rajdhani Express remained the most prestigious premier train for decades, becoming the first to transition to modern LHB rakes at the turn of the millennium. Every rail fan in India has fond memories of travelling in the train that tore through the Gangetic belt as scores of passenger trains made way for its tearing run through the dense corridors of the Kanpur, Prayagraj and Gaya route. The complimentary meals, the uniformed staff, in-coach passenger announcements, and the excelling timing of the train offered luxuries unmatched by other trains on the route.
But not anymore. Under the BJP government in power since 2014, the Rajdhani has maintained its suite of offerings, but its attraction has turned into a fond legacy, with a new generation of modern trains replacing its splendour thanks to sheer comfort, efficiency and sleek design.
Hundreds of Vande Bharat and Vande Bharat sleeper trains being rolled out today have higher maximum speed capabilities, better passenger carrying capacities, amenities rivalling or exceeding those of the Rajdhanis and the Shatabdis, efficient engine-less push pull technologies, and above all, looks that match India's rising economic power and global standing.
Yet, modern Vande Bharat trains running on high-density corridors, despite promising speeds of up to 180 kmph, are being run at maximum speeds of 130 kmph, derailing their promise of bringing in a new era of high-speed rail travel. Many industry watchers put this down to the Railways' bureaucratic mode of risk-averse functioning and its style of prioritising operational consistency over innovation in the absence of any form of competition from the private sector.
The bureaucratic "chalta hai" attitude did scuttle high-speed plans for decades. For many years, the Railways has been functioning without a concerted long-term plan to eventually achieve speeds exceeding 200 kmph, at least in high-demand routes. Not until the BJP government launched Mission Raftaar in 2016 to increase the average speed of passenger and freight trains to 75 kmph and 50 kmph, respectively.
Ten years have passed since the mission was first announced in the Rail Budget of 2016-17, and Indian passenger trains, especially premium trains like the Rajdhanis and the Vande Bharats, are not travelling any quicker than they did at the time of the announcement.
The failure of Mission Raftaar can be attributed to the scale of its basic objective. Indian Railways announced in 2016 that it intended to increase the average speeds of trains not in specific sectors, but all across the six long-distance routes that formed the Diamond Quadrilateral - Delhi – Mumbai, Delhi – Howrah, Howrah- Chennai, Chennai – Mumbai, Delhi – Chennai and Howrah – Mumbai. These routes, according to Indian Railways, "consist of 16% of total Indian Railways network, yet carry 52% of total passenger traffic and 58% of total freight traffic."
"Mission Raftaar is a ‘Mission’ envisaged for speed enhancement and to achieve a target of doubling average speed of freight trains and increasing the average speed of Superfast /mail/Express trains by 25 kmph and not a stand alone ‘Project(s)’. The overall allocation and utilization of funds under Mission Raftaar can not be quantified," Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a Rajya Sabha speech in 2022.
The mission envisaged upgrading all tracks on these routes to support maximum speeds of 130 kmph, eliminating tens of thousands of railway crossings, replacing short-distance engine-hauled trains with MEMU/DEMU trains, fencing all railway tracks to prevent collisions with people, animals and vehicles crossing the tracks, constructing dedicated freight corridors, introducing high-power freight locomotives, and upgrading railway technologies to support high speed travel.
Vaishnaw said the mission was a "constant endeavour and continuous process" that required constant optimisation of investments in modernization of technology, high powered locos, modern coaches and better tracks. He refused to commit to a deadline or a project budget, indicating that the mission would be funded from the Indian Railways' annual budgets for years until all the objectives were met.
The government perhaps stopped short of calling the mission a 50-year objective as it championed fast-paced and efficient infrastructure development as one of its strong pillars. The narrative could have backfired politically. But for industry watchers and rail fans, expecting high-density routes to suddenly run priority trains at 160 kmph is something the Railways may not achieve by 2030.
Take for example the ambitious programme to convert all legacy ICF passenger coaches with relatively-modern and lighter Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches - a project which began in 1997 and is about to enter its 30th year. Between 1955 and 2018, Indian Railways commissioned about 55,000 ICF coaches and has manufactured more than 50,000 LHB coaches till March 2026 to replace the legacy rakes. With the Railways panning to manufacture 4,802 LHB coaches in FY 2027, the plan to replace all ICF coaches in the network would take exactly 30 years to complete since inception.
Now consider the time the Railways will need to fence the entirety of the Golden Quadrilateral and its two diagonals totalling more than 10,000 kilometres, manufacture and commission 800 Vande Bharat trains, implement advanced 2 x 25,000 kV Autotransformer traction system across the high-density network, and introduce additional tracks on the long routes to reduce traffic congestion.
The long road ahead for Mission Raftaar
These are but some of the challenges Indian Railways faces in its race to make Mission Raftaar a reality. Realising that the project was too ambitious, costly and tested the patience of long distance travellers as air travel became more commonplace, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved two projects in 2019 to raise the maximum speeds of trains running on the New Delhi-Howrah and New Delhi-Mumbai routes to 160 kmph. The government did not announce a deadline for the projects nor the amount of money it intended to invest in the short run.
Seven years have elapsed since the decision was first announced, yet trains on these routes continue to ply at maximum speeds of 130 kmph even if there has been incremental improvement in the average speeds of trains. Here's a brief overview of the number of projects that have been completed or are in progress on the two routes as part of Mission Raftaar:
Track fencing
Indian Railways announced in March that it had fenced over 16,000 kilometres of railway tracks till date. These included 4,941 kilometres of fencing in the Northern, North Central, East Central and Eastern railway zones that catered to the New Delhi-Howrah route. Over 7,100 kilometres of fencing had also been completed in the Northern, North Central, West Central and Western railway zones that covered the New Delhi-Mumbai route. The fencing was not exclusive to these routes but included all rail routes covered by these zones. Information about specific fencing activities in the two routes has not been shared by the transporter.
Traction upgrade
Indian Railways is upgrading the electric traction system on busy routes from the legacy 1×25 kV to the 2×25 kV Overhead Electrification (OHE) system. The new system provides consistent voltage levels to support high speed trains and heavy freight loads, eliminating voltage fluctuations and system trips.
However, the project is still in its infancy, with the Railways commissioning the country's first 2×25 kV traction system on the Khachrod–Nagda section in Madhya Pradesh as recently as in September 2025. The Railways says it is working on the upgrading traction systems on a mission mode with several projects being implemented at present, but the busy Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes are yet to feature the new system.
Multi-tracking initiatives
Among the most important initiatives to reduce congestion on the two premier routes is the need to introduce new tracks on the busiest sectors to ensure the smooth running of express trains. Considering the immense congestion on the New Delhi-Howrah route, it is difficult to believe that even in January 2026, only 194 kilometres out of the total route length of 1,450 kilometres consist of four lines, 312 kilometres consist of three lines, and the remaining 944 kilometres consist of just two lines.
To reduce congestion on this route, Indian Railways has initiated the construction of a 150 kilometre third line between Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Prayagraj stations, an 18 kilometre third line between Aligarh and Daud Khan, an 18 kilometre fifth line between Kalipahari and Bakhtarnagar, a 43 kilometre fourth line between Saktigarh and Chandanpur, and 375 kilometres of multi-tracking between Andal and Son Nagar.
In addition, surveys have been initiated for the construction of 480 kilometres of third lines, 96 kilometres of fourth lines, and 151 kilometres of fifth lines along the entire route. On May 22, Indian Railways announced a Rs 962 crore project to construct a 54 kilometre third line between Kiul and Jhajha in Jharkhand to streamline train movements on the section.
The situation in the New Delhi-Mumbai route is no better, with over 1,126 kilometres out of a total route length of 1,386 kilometres consisting of no more than two lines. To enhance the average speeds of express trains on this route, Indian Railways is constructing third and fourth lines on a 64 kilometre stretch between Dahanu Road and Virar and has initiated surveys for the construction of third and fourth lines throughout the remainder of the route.
Track modernisation
To run trains at speeds between 130 kmph and 160 kmph on the New Delhi-Howrah and New Delhi-Mumbai routes, Indian Railways needs to lay 60 kg, 90 UTS (Ultimate Tensile Strength) steel rails that can sustain heavier loads for long periods without cracking. To meet the emerging requirement, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has begun producing 130 metre and 260 metre steel rails with UTS-90 and UTS-110 strength on a significant scale.
Between 2014 and 2026, Indian Railways laid 18,441 track kilometres of steel rails that support speeds of up to 160 kmph with the overall length of such rails, at 23,477 track kilometres, accounting for 22.2% of the entire route length of the railway network.
In comparison, the overall length of obsolete railway tracks that do not support speeds in excess of 110 kmph has come down from 47,897 kilometres in 2024 (60.4% of the network) to 20,484 kilometres in January 2026 (19.4% of the network). For 2026-27, Indian Railways has set a target of renewing 7,900 track kilometres of rails and expanding its overall route length by 3,500 route kilometres.
SAIL now produces R260 grade high-strength micro-alloyed steel rails which are superior to UTS-90 rails, have reduced hydrogen content, have high yield strength and support higher speeds and axle loads. The Universal Rail Mill of SAIL's Bhilai Steel Plant, which produces 260-metre long R260 grade steel panels, dispatched its first rake of R260 grade rails in July 2020 and produces over 1.2 million tonnes of rails each year. The unit has begun producing R350HT grade steel rails that have three times the wear resistance and double the fatigue resistance of R260 grade rails.
To enhance maximum permissible speeds of premium trains, Indian Railways has also adopted new technologies like Flash butt welding, thick web switching, weldable CMS crossings, Pre-stressed Concrete Sleepers with elastic fastening, H-beam Sleepers on girder bridges, modern Rail Grinding Machines, mechanised track maintenance systems and advanced Phased Array technology of testing of rail and welds.
The Railways has also commissioned Electronic interlocking systems in place of old mechanical signalling at over 6,600 stations, and deployed web enabled Track Management System, Integrated Track Monitoring Systems and Oscillation Monitoring Systems to monitor the health of railway tracks. At the same time, it is using track machines like PQRS, TRT and T-28 to lay new tracks, eliminated all unmanned railway crossings and installed interlocking systems at over 10,000 level crossing gates to enhance safety.
According to a Railways press release in January, the transporter carried out mechanised deep screening of ballast in over 7,500 track kilometres in 2025, deployed more than 1,100 track machines to maintain the rail network, and installed over 8,000 Thick Web Switches and more than 3,000 Weldable CMS Crossings on high-speed tracks.
Kavach 4.0
Kavach 4.0, or the latest variant of Indian Railways' indigenous state-of-the-art Automatic Train Protection System, has been heavily deployed on the two high-density routes, with more than 1,297 kilometres covered by the system. Requiring safety certification of highest order, the Kavach system is considered a fool-proof anti-collision system, ensuring that trains run within specified speed limits and automatically applying brakes if loco pilots fail to do so in time.
Kavach 4.0 is considered as a critical step towards ensuring high-speed travel in the high density routes where most of the sections manage traffic beyond their capacities. It will eliminate accidents due to human error and enable high speed rail travel in adverse weather conditions such as heavy rain and thick fog.
However, the system requires heavy investments in the deployment of optical fibre cables along the tracks, activation of Kavach data centres in every station, installation of telecom towers throughout the covered routes, installation of Kavach system on every locomotive, and the deployment of RFID tags throughout the track length.
By February 2026, Indian Railways had installed Kavach in over 4,100 engines and 767 railway stations, laid optical fibres in 8,750 kilometres of track length, installed 1,100 telecom towers, and installed track side equipment along 6,776 route kilometres. The transporter did not provide a deadline for the activation of Kavach all across the two high-density routes.
Modernising the inventory
Indian Railways has embarked on a major exercise to replace existing loco-hauled short-distance trains with Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains that have faster acceleration and deceleration capabilities and significantly reduce travel times between stations.
When the government launched Mission Raftaar, it highlighted its vision to replace all short-distance loco-hauled trains on the six Diamond Quadrilateral routes with MEMUs and DEMUs, aiming to operationalise 1048 MEMU coaches and 136 DEMU coaches in the near term and enhancing production of such coaches to about 500 per year. It later revised the requirement to 1200 MEMU and 200 DEMU coaches for the six routes and in 2022, announced that 414 passenger train services had been converted into MEMU services.
Indian Railways is presently setting up a new Rail Manufacturing Unit in Kazipet, Telangana, which will start operations in 2026 and manufacture two hundred MEMU train rakes in the next five years. The MEMU trains will be fitted with the Kavach system, feature automatically-closing doors and will be capable of running at 130 kmph.
With dozens of MEMU trains getting operationalised every year, Indian Railways has set sights on the next stage of modernisation by rolling out Vande Metro trains - fully air-conditioned trainsets with improved interiors that will gradually replace older MEMU and DEMU trains running short distances.
The Railway Ministry has also virtually stopped rolling out new loco-hauled short and long distance trains since 2020. It has instead operationalised 82 pairs of modern Vande Bharat trains across the network and recently rolled out a sleeper version of the Vande Bharat for long-distance travel. The Railways has contracted the Marathwada Rail Coach Factory at Latur to manufacture 120 new Vande Bharat trainsets and has ramped up production across all rail manufacturing units to reach its target of running 400 pairs of Vande Bharat trains by 2030.
Tackling organisational challenges
The continuous and phased rollout of high-speed MEMU trains, premium Vande Bharat and Vande Bharat Sleeper trains is in line with the Railways' long term plan to reduce the speed differential between different categories of passenger trains.
For decades, millions of passengers have been witness to low-priority trains being forced to make unscheduled stops to make way for those with higher priority like the Rajdhanis and the Shatabdis, resulting in long delays and the Railways' inability to make up for lost time due to severe congestion on high density routes.
In a strategy paper highlighting the top initiatives to make Mission Raftaar a success, three railway zones - Eastern Railway, North Western Railway, and North Frontier Railway - stressed on replacing passenger trains with MEMUs to eliminate speed differentials between different classes of trains to ensure timeliness and increase the average speeds of trains. The railway zones also called for consistent power supply on each rail route and the right-powering of trains to ensure maximum efficiency.
The strategy paper also called for a "HUB & SPOKE" strategy which would require long distance trains to only stop at nominated station HUBs and passengers travelling to smaller "Spoke" stations will be able to take frequent passenger services from the HUBs to visit their towns. Such a strategy would ensure that trains like the Poorva Express, the Howrah and Sealdah Durontos, and the Netaji Express (formerly the Kalka Mail) will be able to travel at top speeds of 160 kmph and not have to make way for the Rajdhani Express trains.
To make Mission Raftaar a possibility on the New Delhi-Howrah route, for example, would require decades of sheer effort, technology adoption and modernisation. Even if Indian Railways standardises modern MEMUs and Vande Bharat trains, the average speeds will not increase unless there are multiple tracks on each route to reduce congestion, the power supply is consistently provided by 2 x 25 kV traction systems, the entire route is covered by Kavach 4.0, and railway tracks are modernised to support train speeds of up to 160 kmph.
Comments