Zheng Jian, a high-speed rail expert, could not believe his ears when told that CST handles nearly 600 services daily.Here’s something to chew on the next time you find yourself in a pub debate over Indian technology vs Chinese technology.Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of high-speed rail at China’s railway ministry, who was on the American newspapers’ front pages in 2010 for proposing to build a high speed rail line between California and San Francisco, was left wide-eyed during his visit to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) on Wednesday morning.Jian, who has supervised construction of high-speed rail routes in Turkey, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, was stunned to see the Central Railway (CR) operating nearly 600 services daily from CST (suburban and long-distance).In China, which has the world’s longest high-speed rail network with about 8,358 km of routes and a top speed capacity of 350 kmph, even the busiest junctions such as Beijing and Shanghai don’t see more than 200 train services a day.After the government announced abullet train service between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and a slew of highspeed corridors across the country during the Union Budget last Thursday, Jian, along with a delegation of 22 from the Chinese rail ministry, arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday to know more about the city’s suburban network.While the CR top brass tried keeping his visit a secret, a senior railway official said, “He visited CST during the rush hour and was shocked at the sheer number of people we cater to. He said it was stunning to see the terminus handling 600 services a day. In their country, they don’t handle more than 200 services a day, and they cannot match our frequency.”While the CR officials refused to divulge the details of the delegation’s agenda, sources said the Railway Board has begun exploring options for building high-speed rail lines. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi extremely keen to share technical knowledge with China, Jian’s visit could open up new avenues for both countries, a source said.“We discussed with the Chinese delegation the opportunities to train heavy haul transportation and station development. They wanted a firsthand experience of the crowds at Mumbai’s main station, and we showed them the control rooms. They were fascinated by our technology wherein we can monitor all the suburban trains on a single screen monitor,” a CR official said.