India’s bullet train: kickstarts and standstills

**Akshara** (0:04)
In today's episode, we'll break down two important stories. First, we'll talk about the kickstarts and standstills of India's bullet train. And then we'll talk about India trying to dent the world's aircraft leasing market. Welcome back to The Daily Brief by Zerodha, where we cut through the noise to help you understand what's actually happening in the most important stories from business and markets. I'm your host Akshara, and today is Tuesday, 7th July. Coming to the first story. So at long last, India shall soon have its own bullet train running between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It took us some time to get here. The Mumbai-Amedabad bullet train was supposed to be operational by 2023, and we are now 3 years past that deadline and roughly 83% over the original budget. But none of that changes the scale of the achievement. Chances are, by August 2027 or thereabouts, India could open the first section of the full 508km corridor. As of now, the fastest train between the two cities takes roughly 6 hours, but the new train, with operational speeds reaching 320kmph, could cut the trip down to under 2 hours, according to the National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited or NHSRCL. Of course, compared to the totality of the Indian railways, this achievement looks tiny.
India runs trains on a network spanning roughly 1.3 lakh route kilometres, carrying crores of people every day. It'll be a long time before bullet trains cover anywhere close to a large share of that traffic. But this is a break from the past that signals the way ahead. It's the first time India is building a railway with a completely different rule book, on a narrower track, with faster signalling, and in a speed class the country has never seen. So, what does it take to actually build something like this?
That's the story we're telling today. Now, before putting this piece together, frankly, we couldn't tell you what a bullet train is. All we knew is that these trains ran fast and had those sleek, pointy noses. And we aren't alone in that. The word bullet train comes from Japan. The country debuted its rock-edge-fast Shinkansen system just before the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, connecting Tokyo and Osaka at speeds that rivaled commercial aircraft. These brand-new trains came with a streamlined, bullet-shaped nose cone, and that gave them their nickname in English. Now, the more technical and boring term is high-speed rail. And whether you have one is a matter of the train speed and the systems built around it. So the term generally refers to trains that can run at 300-350 kmph day in and day out. And that's only possible on tracks specially built specifically for that purpose, with nothing else sharing the line. No freight trains, no slow passenger trains, nothing. So to run at those speeds safely, these entire corridors must be sealed off from the outside world. There can be no level crossings where cars and trucks cross the trucks. And these must have continuous fencing, so no human vehicle or animal can wander onto the line. And you can't rely on a driver reading trackside signals. At 320 km per hour, a train covers nearly 90 meters every second. Far too fast for a human to spot danger and react in time. Now, why don't we have one already? The Shinkansen came out of a specific time in Japanese history. After the destruction and humiliation of the Second World War, the country was finally finding its footing. The country's economy was booming, its pride was finally restored, and the country wanted a transport system that matched its growth. A high-speed train fit that ambition. But that wasn't our reality. In the decades after independence, India was solving a different and more basic problem. How could we move huge numbers of people as cheaply as possible?
That priority never really went away. For most of its history, the Indian railways have been run like a public service and not a business. To government after government, keeping fares cheap mattered more than making trains fast or convenient. In 2024-25 alone, the government absorbed a passenger subsidy of Rs. 60,239 crore. Now, that amounts to an average concession of 43% to every person who travels on the network. If it costs Indian railways Rs. 100 to actually ferry you from station to station, you're only charged about Rs. 57
Now, some of that gap is filled by charging freight customers more than it costs to move their goods. And the rest comes from the taxpayer. This arrangement kept fares low. But it also meant there was no spare capital lying around for something as expensive or ambitious as high-speed rail. These priorities reinforced behaviour. And the average Indian traveller rarely clamoured for speed. But every rate hike would spark protest. There was little political pressure to change the equation.