(This story originally appeared in on Dec 23, 2019)

NEW DELHI: The railways — which is always criticised for slow movement of trains — is looking to focus on increasing the average speed of passenger trains by over 30% to 80 kmph, while targeting a nearly 80% jump in speed of freight trains over the next four-and-a-half years.The railway ministry , as part of the sectoral group on infrastructure, made a presentation before PM Modi and his council of ministers on Saturday, where it presented its plan for the next five years. In case of freight trains, where railways has ceded market share to trucks, the state-run transporter is looking at a gradual increase in average speed — from the current 25 kmph to 30 kmph (2020-21), 34 kmph (2021-22), 39 kmph (2022-23) and 45 kmph by 2024, sources told TOI.A similar acceleration is expected in case of passenger trains and not limit it to Rajdhanis, where changes have already been discussed to cover the distance between Delhi and Mumbai in 12 hours.However, the entire strategy hinges on operationalisation of the two dedicated freight corridors — connecting Dadri near the capital to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust near Mumbai and Ludhiana with Dankuni in West Bengal, which will be operational in a year. The two corridors have missed multiple deadlines, which has resulted in a massive rise in load on the already-overworked rail networks.Currently, main trunk routes such as Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah are highly congested and are utilised up to 150%. Hence, there is no scope for increasing the speed of trains unless a sizeable chunk of freight trains are shifted out.Cleared by the Union Cabinet in 2006, the commissioning of freight corridors has missed several deadlines, which was initially fixed for 2016-17. Currently, trial run is being conducted only on 194 km of Eastern DFC out of 1,856 km. Trial run on another 300 km of Western DFC is likely to start in the next couple of months. The western corridor is 1,504 km. Both the corridors will be completed by December 2021.“The corridors will have direct impact on average speed of all passenger trains as the current load on the two major railway networks will reduce substantially. Moreover, the railways has planned taking up multiple tracking works for nearly 14,000 km to run more trains,” a railway officer said.The officer added that multiple measures were being taken, including introduction of high quality coaches and double engines in trains. “Currently, many trains halt for a long time at stations to allow other trains to cross and the idling time in these ‘loops’ impacts the average speed of passenger and freight trains,” the officer said.