Bullet train project: Key milestones achieved at Gujarat's Vapi station
The structural works at the key Vapi station in Gujarat along the 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor, popularly known as the bullet train project, have achieved key milestones, with the completion of rail platform level slab casting and structural steel installation, the implementing agency said.
The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), which is implementing the project using Japanese Shinkansen technology, said roof sheeting and electrical installations were in progress. In a statement, it added that the station's approach viaduct toward Ahmedabad is ready, and work on that towards Mumbai was going on.
The NHSRCL said the Vapi station in Dungra village will have a 28,917 square metres built-up area, rise to around 22 metres, and have amenities such as a business class lounge. The station is about seven km from the Vapi railway junction, 7.5 km from the bus station, and five km from an industrial area. It will be one of 12 stations—Mumbai (Bandra Kurla Complex), Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand/Nadiad, Ahmedabad, and Sabarmati— along the bullet train corridor.
The project's first phase, covering the 348-km Gujarat stretch, is expected to be operational by 2027. A trial run on a 50-km section between Surat and Bilimora, with the arrival of Shinkansen E3 and E5 series train sets from Japan, designed to run up to 320 km per hour, is expected in early 2026.
The full corridor is expected to be completed by 2028 and reduce travel time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad by almost half to under three hours. One train service will halt at all stations (two hours 58 minutes), and another will have limited stops (about two hours seven minutes).
In its latest update, the NHSRCL said 304 km of viaduct and 388 km of pier work have been completed across the project. Fourteen river bridges, seven steel bridges, and five pre-stressed concrete bridges were ready. Around 163 km of track bed construction has also been finished.
The ambitious Japanese-backed project has faced escalating costs, and a major part of the spending has been on infrastructure building. The Japan International Cooperation Agency is funding the construction of the high-speed rail line.
In September 2024, HT reported that the first Shinkansen E5 bullet train meant to ply at speeds up to 320 km per hour will take at least two years to arrive from Japan, as the Indian railways were in talks with its Japanese counterparts to finalise a schedule for supplying the trains.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the project three years before the work began in 2020. The project, spanning Maharashtra (155.76 km), Gujarat (384.04 km), and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (4.3 km), was scheduled to be completed by 2023. Protests against land acquisition delayed the project.
In March 2024, the NHSRCL said all civil contracts have been awarded in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The laying of the first reinforced concrete track bed for the MAHSR corridor track system, as used in Japanese Shinkansen bullet trains, started in Surat and Anand. This was the first time the J-slab ballastless track system was used in India. The NHSRCL said it achieved a remarkable milestone with the completion of the first 350-metre-long and 12.6-meter-wide mountain tunnel in Gujarat's Valsad district in just 10 months.
The first steel bridge spanning 70 metres and weighing 673 MT has been built across National Highway 53 in Gujarat's Surat.
In March 2024, the NHSRCL announced the commencement of the work for India's first seven-kilometre undersea rail tunnel as part of a 21-km-long tunnel between BKC and Shilphata in Maharashtra. Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who visited Japan last year to sort out issues delaying the project, in February 2024 announced that a 50km stretch between Surat to Bilimoria is expected to open in August 2026.
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