Indian railways – high-speed trains to interconnect Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata

Indian Railways is planning to connect four prime Indian cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata with high-speed trains. These trains will run at 160 kmph, against the current 88-90 kmph. If everything goes as planned, authorities have planned to begin the operations from August 22. This Indian Railways ambitious project is known as ‘Golden Quadrilateral.’
Authorities are coming up with a blueprint for this enormous project that will connect metro cities (Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Chennai, Chennai-Howrah, Chennai-Mumbai and Howrah-Mumbai).


As per one railway official, "We are still finalising the blueprint and efforts are on to officially launch the project by August 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around India's 75th year of Independence. However, everything depends on how we manage to meet every deadline set for the project."

The project has already been reviewed by NITI Aayog. The Cabinet sanction approval is also in process. According to some reports, the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes have already made their ways to 2017-2018 financial budget plan. It’s going to cost around INR 11,189 crore and Rs 6,875 crore respectively. As per reports, the estimated budget is of INR 36,000 crore.

The railway board is likely to give a thorough cost estimate for the rest of the routes by December 31, 2017.