As tracks beyond Surat were flooded, trial run of the Talgo train from Delhi to Mumbai had to slow to a crawl.

It was seen as the flying Spanish, ready to put the Rajdhani Express in the shade, but the vigorous monsoon ensured that the Talgo train between Delhi and Mumbai was ahead by just nine minutes.

The Spanish-made Talgo completed the Delhi-Mumbai trial two hours behind schedule on Tuesday, as tracks beyond Surat were flooded.

The special with shiny white coaches aimed to roll into Mumbai in about 13 hours with a top speed of over 150 kmph, besting Rajdhani Express which takes almost 16 hours. But the monsoon played spoilsport.

A track point failure at Mathura took three hours to fix and set the trip back by 50 minutes. Flooded tracks beyond Surat slowed it down to 30 kmph. The trial was initially halted at Surat.

Western Railway authorities said it had covered the distance “in 2 hours less than Rajdhani.”

The train is planned for the Mumbai–Delhi route, and could shave off three hours from the present run. It was the third trial, the previous two being Bareilly-Moradabad (90 km), and Mathura-Palwal (86 km).

“We will conduct a few more trials to check efficiency,” the Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, Ravinder Bhakar, said. Unlike Indian coaches, Talgo can handle curves at speed and does not need to slow down. “The aluminium coaches are light, and the train uses less electricity,” he said.

The train is hauled by Indian locomotives “as they can touch 200 kmph.” It has nine coaches, two of executive class and four of general class, a cafe, a power car and an equipment coach. Since it is designed with seats, the coaches need to be made sleepers. The cafe would have to serve Indian food, rather than donuts.