India Russia Disagreement over Vande Bharat Train Design

[TEUser2K1]

Indians from all classes travel on trains.

I meant the frequency. Those who travel by air are very few. There may be hundreds of millions of Indians who haven't traveled in a flight in their entire life.
Similarly, the frequency of long distance travel may be lesser for lower middle class to poor. Maybe am wrong too, but it's just my assumption.

 

[6pack]

I am not even understanding what is the need of getting third country involved ( other than for components)when it is being said from day 1 that it is so proudly being shared on every public forum that this is indigenous built project.

Make in India itself is import from world and put that lion sticker on it scheme. Need for getting Russia involved is probably due to low quality of design in India or lack of facilities here. If designs get changed at the last minute, it means our govt has factions in it with differing opinions and one side signed off things without letting the other side know anything about it. Plus you know how slow everything in govt works here. You won't expect a reply in few months time.

"The whole layout of the coach is disturbed."

TMH officials revealed that on May 24, 2024, they received an official letter from Indian Railways requesting changes to the composition and internal features of coaches. The modifications included altering the train composition from 120 trains with 16 cars each to 80 trains with 24 cars each. Additional changes involved increasing the number of toilets from three to four per car and including pantry cars and luggage zones, which weren’t in the original design.

If the railways decide at last minute to completely alter the design, then this is not the Russian company's fault. Even if it was designed in India, the Indian company would put up their hand with such last minute changes and make a huge issue out of it. I would. This is the reason top companies stay clear of govt schemes. It's more headache than money. There's too many idiots in the govt who make life hard for everyone inside and outside the country.

 

[solo_wing]

Make in India itself is import from world and put that lion sticker on it scheme. Need for getting Russia involved is probably due to low quality of design in India or lack of facilities here. If designs get changed at the last minute, it means our govt has factions in it with differing opinions and one side signed off things without letting the other side know anything about it. Plus you know how slow everything in govt works here. You won't expect a reply in few months time.

If the railways decide at last minute to completely alter the design, then this is not the Russian company's fault. Even if it was designed in India, the Indian company would put up their hand with such last minute changes and make a huge issue out of it. I would. This is the reason top companies stay clear of govt schemes. It's more headache than money. There's too many idiots in the govt who make life hard for everyone inside and outside the country.

Exactly. But this looks like very well planned .

This where any one will also take advantage of the situation and start quoting much higher to make changes.

Govt. Babus will then try to take cutbacks from these companies sighting huge changes from initial contract and justifying the huge cost.

Hoagay almost same case Like Rafale.
They keep making last moment changes and keep justifying higher cost.

Atleast with defence deal it is more complicated.
But comeon trains and that too so many last moment changes.
Add a toilet, add a pantry , add extra cars . It is almost like complete redesign.

What were they doing ?.

All these are mostly decided during initial trial runs only before even signing the contract.


Edit: maybe there is another way they could have handled it better if the will was truly to serve in nation interest.

That is accept the few flaws and accept the design and run these trains for short distances journey or as per the need of the journey.

Then invite another tender for the new redesign so that others can quote better price .
Indian Railways anyways need major over haul and will continue to keep replacing old trains with new versions.

They have put the Russian company at major advantage here .

Ofcourse this is just one way I can think of controlling the damage.

 

[blr_p]

I am not even understanding what is the need of getting third country involved ( other than for components)

Know how. Also maintenance is incl

when it is being said from day 1 that it is so proudly being shared on every public forum that this is indigenous built project.
View attachment 219094

That still remains true. The know how does have to come from here so long as that is the case for parts and labour

Even for making some design changes diplomatic level discussions is taking place and you talk about drama.

Yes because its G2G. This way opposition cannot make any drama like you are.

 

[solo_wing]

Know how. Also maintenance is incl

Yes. I know. I read that .
Did you anywhere see me discussing about the maint.cost?.

Yes because its G2G. This way opposition cannot make any drama like you are.

That's the only thing you can keep coming up with.
Why do you try to defend the govt. So vigorously and trying to put onus on opp. Even for this.

This is not about any ruling party or opp.
It is a discussion on how poorly another govt. To govt. Deal is being handled again.
If the govt. Has nothing to hide the. Why worry about some drama from opp.

If you find it a drama don't have to get involved in a discussion.
You can ignore it. Just like you mentioned in other thread.
Practice what you preach.

 

[lockhrt999]

Are we not even capable enough of designing and manufacturing our own Trains in India?

Bro, we can't build decent roads, and you are talking about trains.

Indian railway has been scaling down pantry operations.

Why do you even need the pantry when today you can order hygienic food from Dominos and other 50 restaurants directly to your birth?

 

[6pack]

This where any one will also take advantage of the situation and start quoting much higher to make changes.

Govt. Babus will then try to take cutbacks from these companies sighting huge changes from initial contract and justifying the huge cost.

Hoagay almost same case Like Rafale.
They keep making last moment changes and keep justifying higher cost.

Look, if I had a design company and I had to design these trains, last minute changes mean I have to throw away the design I made and start from scratch. That means pay my designers again for stuff, liaise with some dumb Indian govt employees who don't know anything about train design and will waste weeks of my time, go to countless meetings with ministers who will try to blame me etc . There's a cost to all of this and it's not free. If India feels like they want the changes for free, even I won't help. Then I would straight away try and break the contract or make Indian govt to break the contract. I don't think the Russian company is trying to take an advantage here.

 

[solo_wing]

Bro, we can't build decent roads, and you are talking about trains.

Indian railway has been scaling down pantry operations.

Why do you even need the pantry when today you can order hygienic food from Dominos and other 50 restaurants directly to your birth?

Fair point but still have to understand it is not applicable for everyone in the same train.
Like what about General class.
Don't they deserve to eat.
they cant afford to order pizzas and all or even know how to do it with many still using normal phones( without apps ).

For them 20 bucks samosa or bread pakora.
40-50. Poori sabzi is also a bit of challenge.

I was once travelling and got myself chole bhature.

2-3 children sitting on the train floor were continuously staring at me.
I could not eat and gave them the plate and order some more .

This is not just once instance. This is reality of India.
Govt. Still Needs to look out for them too .

 

[blr_p]

Yes. I know. I read that .
Did you anywhere see me discussing about the maint.cost?.

35 years for maintenance

That's the only thing you can keep coming up with.

It's true isn't it

Why do you try to defend the govt. So vigorously and trying to put onus on opp. Even for this.

And why the hell do you keep bashing them in every post of yours. I've seen this consistent pattern of yours.

This is not about any ruling party or opp.
It is a discussion on how poorly another govt. To govt. Deal is being handled again.

Why does this qualify as 'poorly handled'?

According to whom?

I see these criticisms by you very often and then some empty stupid rant follows.

If the govt. Has nothing to hide the. Why worry about some drama from opp.

If you find it a drama don't have to get involved in a discussion.
You can ignore it. Just like you mentioned in other thread.
Practice what you preach.

Because it's just spam in this topic. And opposition didn't do this deal.

I'm also pointing it out to others so they can be involved.

STOP informing yourself from opposition sources. You are wasting your time as well as mine.

 

[solo_wing]

Look, if I had a design company and I had to design these trains, last minute changes mean I have to throw away the design I made and start from scratch. That means pay my designers again for stuff, liaise with some dumb Indian govt employees who don't know anything about train design and will waste weeks of my time, go to countless meetings with ministers who will try to blame me etc . There's a cost to all of this and it's not free. If India feels like they want the changes for free, even I won't help. Then I would straight away try and break the contract or make Indian govt to break the contract.

I completely agree with you on that.
It has been complete waste of time.

I don't think the Russian company is trying to take an advantage here.

See my point is they have put Russian company at an advantage to renegotiate the deal and ofcourse that will put them at better position to quote prices sighting major changes.

On their part they have full right to renegotiate. I am not blaming them at all. I am blaming us to give them this advantage.

35 years for maintenance

Beside we are paying 4.5 billion dollars for it.
Again how does it make a difference.
We are not talkin about maintenance here.

It's true isn't it

And why the hell do you keep bashing them in every post of yours. I've seen this consistent pattern of yours.

Same applies to you too ..why the hell do you keep defending them?
I point out what I feel is wrong.
If you find any pattern to it ..it's your problem not mine .

Why does this qualify as 'poorly handled'?

According to whom?

According to everyone here who is discussing. Start reading other people post too.

I see these criticisms by you very often and then some empty stupid rant follows.

Because it's just spam in this topic. And opposition didn't do this deal.

You bought the opp. I didn't.

I'm also pointing it out to others so they can be involved.

Dont have to tell others what to do and what not to. They are all sensible enough to choose on what to discuss upon.

STOP informing yourself from opposition sources. You are wasting your time as well as mine.

My advice Please give yourself some importance and stop posting on topics you find drama.

People can discuss without you too.

 

[6pack]

Bro, we can't build decent roads, and you are talking about trains.

Indian railway has been scaling down pantry operations.

Why do you even need the pantry when today you can order hygienic food from Dominos and other 50 restaurants directly to your birth?

Lot of people even bring their own food from home. Most of the poor people go that route or stay hungry and only drink water. The financially better off people buy from pantry or fake pantry (third party vendors who don't give receipt or overcharge for pantry items) or buy from food stalls at stations. If the trains stop at every station for 5 minutes, then pantry will exist only for pouring hot water in premixed tea /coffee or heating up food. No wonder the railways don't want pantry.

 

[lockhrt999]

I don't travel that frequently on trains. But last time I did, somebody took the food order from me at one station and delivered the food to me at the next station. I guess anybody can use this service, even poor.

I could be wrong, but having a pantry on the train itself doesn't seem efficient. It might have made sense if trains had to go 10 hours without taking a single stop. But in India, that's not the case anymore.

 

[blr_p]

Beside we are paying 4.5 billion dollars for it.
Again how does it make a difference.
We are not talkin about maintenance here.

It's a very important component for such a system and ensures proper operation.

Same applies to you too ..why the hell do you keep defending them?

I don't do that unless it can be defended

I point out what I feel is wrong.
If you find any pattern to it ..it's your problem not mine .

What you feel is wrong? You alone are not at all qualified. So you need sources to back up your criticisms and those come from the opposition.

Nine times out of ten you can safely ignore anything the opposition says and this applies to all accountable governments and countries with a free press.

According to everyone here who is discussing. Start reading other people post too.

I'm quoting what you said so YOU present your arguments as to WHY.

I don't see them posting long India bashing rant like you did. Why do you always do this?

Dont have to tell others what to do and what not to. They are all sensible enough to choose on what to discuss upon.

I'm doing it (maybe ten times now)..so

My advice Please give yourself some importance and stop posting on topics you find drama.

People can discuss without you too.

..others can catch this out without me having to do so.

Just see how you began.. from the first post the tone is set. More BS is sure to follow

Are we not even capable enough of designing and manufacturing our own Trains in India?

Evidently not. So what. We are getting what I presume is full ToT so we can in the future.

Chinese are testing Maglev trains and we are asking Russia to add one more toilet to our train....hadh hai .

This is typical CCP bot fare. Boost China. Make some toilet reference about India. Whenever you see framing like this something isn't right

WTF does China have to do with this topic and why are we being compared with them?

See, I'm pointing out red flags to others here.

 

[solo_wing]

I don't travel that frequently on trains. But last time I did, somebody took the food order from me at one station and delivered the food to me at the next station. I guess anybody can use this service, even poor.

I could be wrong, but having a pantry on the train itself doesn't seem efficient. It might have made sense if trains had to go 10 hours without taking a single stop. But in India, that's not the case anymore.

the people who took the order are from Railway service only.
Yes anyone can use that service even poor. But even for them to store food and water they need pantry car otherwise how and where will they story so many crates of water and food to serve thousands of passengers.

I don't do that unless it can be defended

I have stood with the govt. where I feel they have a strong case and point out against them where I feel they have screwed up.

What you feel is wrong? You alone are not at all qualified. So you need sources to back up your criticisms and those come from the opposition.

Like you I have rights to point what I have understood is wrong or right.
Neither are you qualified to talk on all issues but you have a point and so do I .

I'm quoting what you said so YOU present your arguments as to WHY.

I don't see them posting long India bashing rant like you did. Why do you always do this?

Bashing India is wrong word.
Calling out on things not being done right is correct.

And 8out of 10 things in this country feels either being handled poorly or really requiring serious and fast attention.

Evidently not. So what. We are getting what I presume is full ToT so we can in the future.

That I hope happens but right now it seems a simple business deal which might again go through renegotiation and waste of time. Delaying the process again.

This is typical CCP bot fare. Boost China. Make some toilet reference about India. Whenever you see framing like this something isn't right

WTF does China have to do with this topic and why are we being compared with them?

Making Toilet reference was said in light mood cant be taking every passing side comment too seriously also. My point was simple...are we not capable of designing and manufacturing trains here? Like me some members are also shocked to see that actually this is being done in Russia as all these while we were being told by the govt. it is indigenous project. usually that means everything is being done in India from scratch but that seems far from the case.

If you feel so bad about the toilet reference...I would like to clear that it was not to show India in poor light but it is also a fact that we can do much better than this.


as For comparing with China...What is wrong with that now?
ofcourse I will compare with them. They are our neighbour that has grown rapidly over the years in terms of infrastructure.

Every friend of mine and relative coming from China has nothing but praises for its growth. Not saying they are perfect but you got to admire them for many achievements which we can also do but lack of poor decisions and political parties too busy with religions BS all the time is making it a very slow excruciating progress for millions of Indians.

India cannot afford to continue at such slow pace. One bullet train project has changed deadlines already and the third deadline might also again be needed to extend..the way things are going.

Opp. or govt. in power does not matter. In the end people get left behind.

 

[6pack]

Like me some members are also shocked to see that actually this is being done in Russia as all these while we were being told by the govt.

funfact - the metro local train design is Russian too. We just bought hundreds of scrapped Russian locals from them in 50's/60's and the same design is being used with a few changes. from dc to ac, from low voltage to high voltage etc.

 

[solo_wing]

funfact - the metro local train design is Russian too. We just bought hundreds of scrapped Russian locals from them in 50's/60's and the same design is being used with a few changes. from dc to ac, from low voltage to high voltage etc.

Even in Kolkata which had first metro in India is done with Russian help.
But look how far have we actually come from 50s/60s..not much

In a country where every year thousands of engineers and scientist are graduated and struggling for jobs is still so heavily reliable on so many important things.


look at the RnD spending of other countries in comparision to us. Now this is 2 years old so maybe things might have improved a bit .
Israel ka RnD spending dekh ke toh dimaag ghum gaya hai.

 

[mayank11280]

Even in Kolkata which had first metro in India is done with Russian help.
But look how far have we actually come from 50s/60s..not much

In a country where every year thousands of engineers and scientist are graduated and struggling for jobs is still so heavily reliable on so many important things.


look at the RnD spending of other countries in comparision to us. Now this is 2 years old so maybe things might have improved a bit .
Israel ka RnD spending dekh ke toh dimaag ghum gaya hai.





View attachment 219118

This has a lot to do with risk aversion of private sector. Look at the startup economy, almost all of Indian startups are mercantile in nature, be it Swiggy, Ola, Unacademy, etc. very rare few are actually doing any kind of research for new product or services.

All the other countries like Israel have private sector contributing 90% to the R&D expenditure, in India private sector hardly contributes 1/3rd of R&D expenditure.

 

[lockhrt999]

https://www.reddit.com/r/indianrailways/comments/1hso3oz/vande_bharat_should_not_exist_in_india

 

[blr_p]

funfact - the metro local train design is Russian too. We just bought hundreds of scrapped Russian locals from them in 50's/60's and the same design is being used with a few changes.

I'd like to see proof for this.

But one could say similar about British & American train designs. Always people are there bashing this. When the Japanese came out with their bullet train in the 60s, they could reach 220km/h.

60 years later there are still no trains that can reach those speeds either in the US or UK.

from dc to ac, from low voltage to high voltage etc.

Metros in Delhi & Bangalore by Japan. I don't see people crying about foreign designed. Other than it should have happened twenty years earlier.

Designed in Japan and in Delhi they decided to go with Korean coaches as they were cheaper angering the Japanese who provided the extremely low interest loans in the first place.

So why is there a problem if this train was developed in Russia?

If we can't design it ourselves then we should not have it? or what is the solution.

Go with tried and tested that too over several decades so reliable and cheap as opposed to reinventing the wheel.

I see only frivolous critiques being made in this thread.

Find me some REAL ones!!

 

[6pack]

I'd like to see proof for this.

But one could say similar about British & American train designs. Always people are there bashing this. When the Japanese came out with their bullet train in the 60s, they could reach 220km/h.

60 years later there are still no trains that can reach those speeds either in the US or UK.

I searched a lot but google results only come up for recent news. The old time news articles don't show up. I read this in TOI or some other newspaper in 80's i think. No need to believe me.

People are bashing because we are being misled here. We are given false hopes about everything being done in India but it's not in reality. Lot of people bashed bullet train sector between Gujarat
and Mumbai but that was just opposition propaganda. Now there's 4-5 bullet train sectors in design phase.

If we can't design it ourselves then we should not have it? or what is the solution.

Solution is to stop lying to the people to get brownie points. Just say directly that we don't have capability to design our own stuff even after 76+ years because none of the govt's cared about R&D
and only cared about nonsense issues like religion or other stuff that came up all these years. Solution is to let in private companies to design stuff instead of letting in only govt run companies to design stuff. Solution is to allow indian & foreign companies into running some small and big railway routes or luxury trains. Govt wants to do everything here and does it really badly and when we point it out some people get angry like they run the govt themselves. I don't understand why you take it so personally.