India bullet train contract awarded

Indian construction giant Larsen and Toubro has secured a contract from the National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited to construct a 116km section of High-Speed Ballastless Trackworks as part of India’s Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) Project.

The MAHSR scheme, also referred to as the bullet train project, is a 508km link between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in western India. Its cost is estimated at approximately US$3.3 billion.

It is expected to reduce the travel time between the two cities to less than two hours compared to the current time of more than seven hours. There will be a dozen stations and two rail depots.

In 2021 India announced an ambitious National Rail Plan that envisages all major cities in north, west and south India should be connected by high-speed rail. Cities between 300km and 700km apart with a population of at least one million are being prioritised.

The scope of Larsen and Toubro’s MAHSR T3 Package includes Design, Supply, Construction and Testing & Commissioning track works on a Design-Build price basis for the double line high speed railway between Vadodara and Sabarmati in Gujarat. Larsen and Toubro has previously been awarded contracts for the MAHSR scheme.

Japanese Shinkansen track technology will be adopted in this project. Upon completion, this slab track system will enable trains to travel at speeds of up to 320km per hour.

Larsen and Toubro is currently executing various Ballastless track projects in multiple metro projects in India and abroad as well as civil viaduct and station packages C4, C5 & C6 and special steel bridges packages P4(X) & P4(Y) for the MAHSR project.