Talgo trails again: Train reaches Mumbai behind its target time

Spanish-made Talgo train on Saturday completed its Mumbai journey 17 minutes behind the target due to the technical glitch. Talgo train with nine coaches has started at 2.47 PM from New Delhi station on Friday and reached Mumbai Central at 3.40 AM on Saturday running at 130 kmph speed. It took about 12 hours 53 minutes to reach the destination against the target of 12 hour 36 minutes, said a senior Railway Ministry official. He said besides heavy rains, there were some signal problems during the Mumbai trial run which caused the 17 minutes delay. There will be two more trials on Delhi-Mumbai section.

Talgo is expected to run on 140 km per hour speed on August 9 and at 140 km speed and on August 14, he said. Talgo aims to reduce travel time between Delhi-Mumbai by four hours. Currently, the super-fast Rajdhani Express train takes around 16 hours to complete the 1,384 km stretch between New Delhi and Mumbai.

Railways had conducted the first trial run of Talgo trains on the Bareilly-Moradabad stretch in Uttar Pradesh in May. The second trial run was conducted on the Palwal-Mathura section of the North-Central Railway. The nine-coach Talgo train consists of two Executive Class cars, four Chair Cars, a cafeteria, a power car and a tail-end coach for staff and equipment.