Eat-Sleep-Railfanning 🔄 Repeat - Shankar Mehani

* Shatabdi, an ordinary train by international standards which run at same speed or 10-20kmph faster than Express trains is considered a premium train by IR, that 15-20% higher base fare and a flexi surcharge upto 50% of base fare (avg about 35%) is levied.
* On the other hand, Bullet train shall be a world class train, which shall operate on very costly dedicated tracks at 320kmph with very short journey times. In view of above fact, the statement that "Bullet train fares shall be equal to conventional ones" is almost unbelievable.
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Fixing fares for the bullet train is going to be a very tough task as
(1) the very costly HS corridor need about 1 lac paxs per day to come anywhere near the financial break even point at fares equal to air fare.
(2) the fares have to be affordable to a large fraction of society including atleast the Middle class if not the poor. With ever increasing income tax levels in real terms (after adjusting to inflation), the % of population which can afford high bullet train fares is likely to be lower than the desired level.
(3) IR shall have to subsidise the HS rail travel in line with some European countries and at the same time have to go for low cost seat by going for AC DD HSTs so that the fare for economy seats can be kept low enough to ensure affordability to general public. TGV Double Decker Duplex trains are successfully operating.
(4) Revenue from commercial utilisation of station & surrounding area, advertisements, development of townships and Special Economic Zones along the HST corridor has to be maximised to make HSTs viable in a poor and populous country like India.