Indian Railways - Up to the Challenge?

Today's New York Times has a long article regarding economic development in India:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

The article raises the question to what extent will the State owned Indian Railways be able to accommodate the future growth of India. Evidently one Indian "tycoon" holds they will not, which has resulted in coal, of which India has substantial reserves, being imported from Malaysia and hauled to his industrial facilities on his own private railroad.

Brief passage:

• Indian Railways is a huge government bureaucracy with some of the world’s highest freight charges, even though Indian freight trains travel slowly and carry small loads. Mr. Adani found it cheaper, more efficient and sometimes faster to ship coal 4,000 miles by sea than 1,000 miles by train. (Indonesian coal is also of a higher quality than Indian coal.)

Much as we here in the Western World like to hold differently, the 21st is shaping up to be "The Asian Century", during which obviously the two main players will be China and India. While serious flaws with the High Speed Rail accident being front and center are being exposed with China's rail system, the Indian railways do not appear to be up to much of anything - let alone being able to handle the traffic needed to support an emerging economy's growth. There is only one way the massive passenger traffic volume that IR now handles is going - and that is down. Because India is a democracy, the State simply cannot 'decree" to its citizens that "you will use trains', and, while I've never been there (I've been three quarters of the way around, but am missing from roundly the 10th to the 100th East Meridian) anything I've read about rail travel in India suggests it is rather primitive. Low cost air carriers are apparently proliferating; soon there will be outcry from we the people that it's time for an "Interstate" highway system.

Confronted with a situation analogous to that in the US after the end of the Korean War, and ending with the nationalization of some skeleton rail passenger system twenty years later, IR will have more capacity to handle freight traffic, which as those who follow the material I submit to other forums at the site, know I hold this is what 21st century railroading is all about, But with the deterioriated infrastructure at best maybe where the US industry was circa 1970, to what extent IR will be a partner in the economic growth of India must be at question.

I know we have several members here familiar with Indian Railways' operations; I await their comments.

Already outcrying for an Interstate-quality system. The road from Mumbai to Pune is as good as any Interstate in the US. Rail travel *is* fairly primitive. They'll need to work out how to improve the quality of the travel before they can expect to keep customers as they get wealthier.

its probably cheaper to ship coal 4000 miles by sea , than 1000 miles by rail , anywhere in the world .

Indias trains are totally packed , i dont think it is in their thinking to worry about lack of passengers . While the upper and middle classes (or castes ) may be growing , the lower classes are growing even faster . ( the caste / class system is very much allive in India) .

David Benton wrote:its probably cheaper to ship coal 4000 miles by sea , than 1000 miles by rail , anywhere in the world .

India's trains are totally packed , i don't think it is in their thinking to worry about lack of passengers . While the upper and middle classes (or castes ) may be growing , the lower classes are growing even faster . ( the caste / class system is very much allive in India) .

When the British built the system there were fewer people - perhaps 100 million. There were about 300 million when the British left. Now there are over 1000 million. That's a lot of extra customers.

There was a long period when few improvements were made - abolition of steam and replacement by diesel and electric, but not a lot of new capacity. There is a steady programme of regauging the metre gauge lines, mostly built in British days in the Princely states.