First consignment from Japan arrives in Vadodara

VADODARA : Almost a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s first bullet train project along with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, the first consignment of Japanese-made goods for the prestigious Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project has landed in Vadodara.

The consignment which was shipped to Mumbai and later brought to Vadodara last week through road has reached the spot where the High Speed Rail Training Institute (HSRTI) is being set up by the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) which is implementing the national high speed rail corridor project.

HSRTI is being developed over a land area of five hectares at the campus of the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR) in Vadodara. On Sunday, Achal Khare, managing director of NHSRCL, visited the site where the work for laying the training tracks using the Japanese goods has started.

The consignment includes 20 track slabs, 200 metre rails and reinforcement bars of 13 mm diameter.

“The track slabs prepared from high strength concrete are presently manufactured only in Japan whose Shinkansen technology we are adopting for the high speed rail network,” Khare told TOI during his visit to the city, adding that the track slabs provide the required stability to run the high speed trains.

“In future, these track slabs will be manufactured in the country,” he said, adding that even the 13 mm diameter reinforcement bars are presently not manufactured by any player in the country. For the total project length of 508 km, most of which will be on an elevated corridor, over one lakh such track slabs will be required for laying the tracks on which the bullet train will run.

“The training tracks where Japanese contract workers and supervisors have started working with their Indian counterparts is expected to get ready by mid-January,” said Pradeep Ahirkar, chief project manager of NHSRCL.

“A single track slab combines the strength of eight sleepers. We are setting two 100 metres training tracks at the site. While one training track of 100 metres will be for straight line, another of the same length will be for the curved line,” said a NHSRCL official, who has returned to Vadodara after undergoing training at Japan.

“Once, the training tracks are ready and the construction of the hostel building gets over, we will start training of manpower from February,” he said. For preparing the training tracks, the sub soil quality of the ground was tested after which good quality of soil was used.

“An embankment will be now prepared after which RCC bed will be laid and the track slabs will be placed above them. Finally, the rails will come over the track slabs,” the official said.

HSRTI will provide advanced training modules on cutting edge technologies relating to high speed rails as it will have all those facilities which are available at HSRTI of JR-East Railway Company at Shin Shirakawa in Japan like the driver simulator, signal and telecom equipment, OHE and power supply equipment among others.