The Chennai–Bengaluru high-speed rail corridor is a proposed high-speed railway line that connects two major economic and state capitals in the southern parts of the Republic of India, Chennai and Bengaluru. Construction has yet to begin and the project still remains standing as a distant proposal. Several feasibility studies have been completed, notable by Germany and China. The Indian High Speed Rail Commission requested for route designs to be tendered in February 2020. The proposal would see the journey times between the two cities reduced to around ninety minutes with upgrading work costing around 200Rs/km.
History
The current journey from Chennai to Bengaluru run at and takes 6–7 hours to complete, with ticket prices starting for Second Seating as little as ₹150 and for Sleeper Class at ₹230. The Shatabdi Express runs at an average of, covering the distance in 5 hours with ticket prices starting at ₹975. KarnatakaChief Minister, Siddaramaiah, suggested that the state wanted to run bullet trains to Chennai, and was conducting talks with his counterparts in Japan about the topic. He commented that the journey could be done in less that one hour though no studies had yet been conducted prior to those words. A feasibility study by China on the project was submitted to the Federal Government in June 2015. While Germany also proposed to conduct its own feasibility study at the same time. The then Railways Minister, Suresh Prabhu, suggested that the route would be one of the next high-speed railways to be implemented in India. Japan Railway Technical Service and Oriental Consultants submitted a feasibility study in early 2016 about constructing the high-speed railway line through a PPP with the government. In mid-2016, the government of Andhra Pradesh floated a Special Purpose Vehicle to support the creation of high-speed railways passing through the state. French state-owned company SNCF also expressed an interest in building a high-speed railway line too. In early 2017, Indian Railways responded to a proposal by Elon Musk for a Hyperloop to connect the two cities in thirty minutes, saying that it would be unlikely due to government bureaucracy. During the June 2017 opening of Bengaluru's Green Line, Japan’s Ambassador to India, Kenji Hiramatsu, suggested that the railway line should be built with support from Japanese development funds.
Description
The high-speed railway line would mainly be built alongside the existing railway between the two cities. However, a viaduct between Bangarapet and Vaniyambadi, as well as a viaduct between Katpadi and Arakkonam, would need to be constructed due to hilly terrain. There would be two new railway stations built underground in Bengaluru, while Chennai would witness the high-speed trains, running at around, terminating at its existing central station.
