New Delhi, May 9 -- Imagine traversing the 508 km distance between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in all of two hours, a distance that takes about nine hours in a public bus or six hours in a conventional train. High-speed trains have come to symbolise the future of travel the world over, specially to cover inter-city distances between 400-800 km and India is not going to be far behind as we expect our first high-speed rail corridor to be operational by 2026.

As India positions itself to join the coveted list of global superpowers, a transformation of the railway system, which carries over 8 billion passengers annually, is an integral part of this journey. Towards this end, 11 high speed rail corridors have been planned under the National Rail Pla...