en.Wedoany.com Reported - State-owned Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) is manufacturing India's first indigenously developed high-speed train at its Aditya plant in Bengaluru, inaugurated by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on April 25, 2026. The first B28 prototype is expected to be unveiled in early 2027, followed by 4 to 6 months of testing, and will enter commercial service in August 2027. The Ministry of Railways has set a formal manufacturing deadline of March 2027 for this train, designed to operate at 280 km/h.
The B28 train, named "Bharat-made Bullet," is designed for a speed of 280 km/h and is India's first fully self-designed and manufactured high-speed rail vehicle. According to a contract awarded to BEML by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in October 2024, two train sets will be built initially. These trains will operate on the 97-km Surat-Vapi section of the 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) corridor. Built to Japanese Shinkansen standards, the corridor is designed for a speed of 350 km/h, with an operational speed of 320 km/h. It traverses Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, featuring 12 stations, with approximately 90% of the route on viaducts. A 21-km tunnel section in Maharashtra includes a 7-km undersea crossing beneath Thane Creek, India's first underwater railway tunnel, using a tunnel boring machine with a diameter of 13.6 meters, the largest ever used for an Indian railway project. Three depots in Sabarmati, Surat, and Thane are under construction.
The B28 program will position India among a select group of countries with domestic high-speed train manufacturing capabilities. Japan's N700S Shinkansen took approximately 24 months from prototype unveiling to commercial operation in 2020, while China's Fuxing CR400 series experienced a similar 22 to 26-month development-to-deployment cycle. BEML's compressed 4 to 6-month testing window, if achieved, would be significantly shorter than these benchmarks. In parallel regional infrastructure development, the UAE's passenger rail network is executing a phased rollout, commencing operations on the Abu Dhabi-Fujairah route from June 30, 2026, with stations in Dubai, Al Dhaid, and Sharjah opening sequentially by March 2027, a timeline overlapping with B28 testing. Both projects reflect accelerated railway infrastructure investments in the Indian Ocean region. The Indian government plans to sell up to 2% of its stake in Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) to achieve a divestment target of INR 800 billion for fiscal year 2027, indicating multiple financing mechanisms are being mobilized to sustain the capital expenditure trajectory.
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