Talgo final trial run: Train reaches Mumbai in more than 15 hours, heavy rains delay arrival

Mumbai, Aug 2: Spanish-made train Talgo on Tuesday reached Mumbai. The train which was on its third and final phase of trials reached Mumbai at 11.40 AM, over three hours behind schedule.

The high speed Talgo train which was expected to reach Mumbai Central Station at 8:31 AM got delayed by more than three hours due to heavy rains. The train with Railway and Spanish officials onboard commenced its journey at 7.55 PM from New Delhi station on Monday.

Talgo train which aims to cut the travel time between Delhi and Mumbai to 12 hours ran at 130 kmph on this trial run.

Reportedly, the train with the speed of 130 kmph will start its return journey on August 3 (Wednesday) at 3 PM. It will reach New Delhi the next day at 5 PM.

"This is the timing trial and we want to find out how much time it is likely to save if we allow such type of coaches to run on our track. Four such trials will take place with speed ranging from 130 kmph to 150 kmph," Railway Board Member (Mechanical) Hemant Kumar told.

The third trial will be on August 9 and the fourth and final on August 14. "This is our time trial. We had already done the safety trial between Palwal and Mathura where we had gone upto 180 kmph both loaded and empty run," he added.

The second trial between Delhi and Mumbai will also be at 130 kmph and in the third trial, the train will be allowed to run at a higher speed of 140 kmph.

"Then the fourth trial will be at 150 kmph with higher speed on the curves. We expect that it is likely to take 11 hours 30 minutes at 150 kmph to reach Mumbai," he said.

Earlier trials of high speed train

Railways had conducted the first trial run of Talgo trains on the Bareilly-Moradabad stretch in Uttar Pradesh in May.

The second trial run was conducted on the Palwal-Mathura section of the North-Central Railway.

However, Kumar said the train cannot be used on Indian Railways in its present form. "This has got lower platform height and in this form it cannot be used.

After trial if we decide to go for it then we have to find ways and means as to how to go about it," he said.

Presently, super-fast trains such as Rajdhani Express take around 16 hours to traverse the route. The train consists of nine coaches, two executive class, four chair cars, a cafeteria, a power car and a tail-end coach for staff and equipment

OneIndia News

(With inputs from PTI)