Rockfort Express: திருச்சி அவனது கோட்டை, இரவில் சென்னை வரை வேட்டை, அவன் தான் மலைக்கோட்டை. - Vijay Baradwaj

Indian Rly vs Chinese Rly
* RM deserves a credit for really making honest efforts to improve the IR system as the capital expenditure has atleast doubled in real terms since he took over the reigns. The feat is praiseworthy because he is able to do it after getting IR in a very bad financial condition and very poor market conditions (negligible incremental bulk freight offering).
* Since India is trying to compare its railway with China, the 8.5 lac crore investment in 5 years is really not a big deal. China...
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has invested about 2500 Billion Yuan i.e. about Rs. 24 Lac Crores in last 3 years i.e. 2014/15/16 against only 2.5 lac crores in last 3 financial years.
* China already have over 15000 RKms of HSTs which is about 50% of total HST routes in the world. China plans to invest 3.5 trillion Yoans i.e. Rs. 34 lac crores in next 4 years to further improve the railway connectivity. It plans to connect most of its big cities by HSTs by to take total HST route KM to a whopping 30,000Kms.
* In last 70 years RKMs of Railways in China grew from 45,000 RKms to 1,25,000 Rkms (incl 15000+Kms of HSTs) where as in India the progress was from 55,000 RKms to just 65,000 RKMs (with no HST till date).
* In fact, under the dynamic duidance of RM, IR has begun to take positive steps which China started 2 decades ago. There is a long way ahead for IR to really become a world class Rly. It is a matter of satisfaction, that atleast one RM has dared to take this first step.

* One line answer to the question raised by RM: Make Mr. E Sreedharan RM, and see the difference in IR.
* RM is right, IR rddle is difficult to solve as it is dogged with a large number of problems like
political interference,
departmentalism,
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management/ operational/ accounting practices,
Inadequate use of high technology,
many corrupt/incompetent people employed(married) to the organisation,
inefficient multilayer organisational structure leading to slow decision making/ policy implementation. etc.
* The biggest problems for IR is political interference & corruption, and Mr E Sreedharan is averse to both.