The Western Railway (WR) will be executing works worth Rs 4,011 crore to convert the Mumbai-Delhi line into a semi-high speed corridor. This will allow trains to run at speeds of up to 160 km per hour. The 1,384 km corridor now takes 15.5 hours to cover and Mission Raftar aims to reduce it to 12 hours.
The detailed scope of work includes upgrading tracks, bridges, signalling and overhead equipment installations and removal of some permanent speed restrictions.
A combined estimate for the entire project is being prepared and will be finalised soon. In the Western Railway’s proposal, civil works amount to Rs 1,933 crore, of which Rs 660 crore will go towards building boundary walls and fencing the corridor. The other major civil work includes closing of level crossing gates by providing road overbridges and subways, which would cost around Rs 4,400 crore and will be financed under a separate budgetary head.
The bridge over Vaitarna creek in Palghar will be replaced at a cost of Rs 330 crore. The other major expenses are in the electrical works, which are expected to cost Rs 1,237 crore and include critical upgrades to the current system. To cater to high speeds, it will need to reduce the span of the overhead equipment structures.
Old redundant structures will need to be dismantled. The other major cost would be another feeder line across the entire corridor to cater to the high power requirement of high-speed trains. The other costs will be to upgrade the signalling systems across the corridor to facilitate semi-high speeds.
The entire project is expected to cost Rs 10,070 crore for which the Railway Board has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for 2020-21. The project is expected to be financed through extra budgetary resources.
There are four railway zones involved in the project -- Northern Railway, North Central Railway, West Central Railway and Western Railway. The Railway Board has nominated Western Railway as the coordinating zone for getting the combined cost sanctioned.