Guess what is the top speed of this train?
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
Being a big country with a very large population, train travel has long been a major trasnportation system that many Indians rely on. Sad to say that Indian's train service had suffered from many decades of neglect and chronic lack of funds.
On Tuesday, 5 April 2016, India flagged-off it's fastest-ever train!
Hailed as “a new era of high-speed rail travel”, the Gatimaan Express travels at the speed of 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles) traveling from New Delhi to Taj Mahal. This 100-minute journey costs between 750 Rupees ($12) and 1,500 Rupees (S$30) depending on seat class.
The train also boost of many facilities and improvements such as plush interiors, WiFi based entertainment system and also automatic sliding doors! However the Gtimaan Express can only travel at half the speed of trains in China, Japan, France and other countries where their highest speed is at 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour)!
This “semi bullet train” is part of a bigger plan to overhaul the entire train system. Indian government had even signed a deal with Japan to build India's first ever “bullet train”.
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
With this good start, India can soon look forward to improvements of their train system, an important component of travel modernisation.
