SATV 17 April, Kathmandu: Japan plans to provide East Japan Railway E5 and E3 series shinkansen for free to India as inspection vehicles for its national high-speed railway under construction in the western region of the South Asian country, it was learned Tuesday.
One train set each from the E5 and E3 series will be delivered to India in early 2026, after they are fitted with inspection equipment, according to informed sources.
The Japanese and Indian governments plan to adopt in the early 2030s the next-generation E10 series shinkansen of JR East for the roughly 500-kilometer high-speed rail link between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in western India. The delivery of the E10 trains will unlikely be in time for the line's partial opening, aimed for August 2027.
The supply of the E5 and E3 trains will come also because Tokyo places importance on having Japanese train cars in India when the high-speed line enters into service. The project is supported by the East Asian nation's iconic shinkansen technology and therefore is of great significance to the Japanese government as well.
The inspection trains will collect data on driving conditions, including the effects of high temperatures and dust, to aid possible future production of E10 trains in India.
Until the arrival of the next-generation trains, India plans to use domestically made semi-high-speed trains on the new rail link after modifications to increase their speed.
Initially, E5 trains were planned to be adopted for passenger service on the high-speed railway. Frustrated at the high costs and postponements in the delivery, however, India was tilting toward the idea of using homemade train cars.
To break the deadlock in the negotiations, the Japanese side late last year proposed the introduction of E10 trains and free-of-charge provision of E5 and E3 trains. India signaled an intention to basically accept the overture.
Low-interest yen loans from the Japanese government are planned to be used to cover about 80% of the project's overall costs, which were originally forecast at some ¥1.8 trillion.
As the costs are now expected to grow, however, the two governments plan to create a new yen loan framework that will enable the introduction of E10 trains, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Japan for a bilateral summit.
When Taiwan built the Taiwan High Speed Rail, the first non-Japanese high-speed railway using the shinkansen technology, Japan provided it with a train from the 0 series, the country's first-generation Shinkansen, for free as a test vehicle to check if THSR trains would come in contact with obstacles.
