Delhi–Mumbai route is being rebuilt for 160 kmph under Mission Raftaar

That belongs to the Palwal–Mathura stretch, an important section of the New Delhi–Mumbai route. The section runs 84 route kilometres and roughly 336 track kilometres, and it is being upgraded to carry higher-speed operations.

The distinction between route and track kilometres explains the ratio: a route kilometre is a kilometre of line on the map, while track kilometres count every running line, loop and siding along it. Four times as much track as route is the signature of a busy multi-line corridor, and every one of those kilometres has to be brought up to the same standard.

Why a faster train needs a bigger electricity supply

The traction substation is the least visible part of the project and among the most important.

Raising line speed raises power draw sharply, and it raises it in bursts as trains accelerate. A 2×25 kV system — feeding the overhead line at a higher effective voltage than the conventional arrangement — reduces losses over distance and lets substations sit further apart while still delivering the current a fast, heavy train demands.

Without that, higher speeds are theoretical: the timetable can specify 160 kmph, but the power supply decides whether a train can actually reach and hold it.

Everything else that has to change with it

The railway is running co-ordinated upgrades across several departments so trains can run safely at the higher speed. The works listed include:

• modifications to the overhead equipment
• installation of Super Masts and Auxiliary Earth Conductors
• traction and power supply upgrades
• signalling and telecommunications work
• yard remodelling
• other civil and mechanical works required for high-speed operations

Work on the Mathura–Bhuteshwar section is also progressing, Sharma said, with the focus now on completing the auxiliary earth conductor work, erecting masts and commissioning station areas.

Yard remodelling is on that list too, which is why the upgrade is counted in track kilometres and not only route kilometres: the loops and sidings at each end are part of what has to be rebuilt.

Twelve hours, and what it would mean

The target is the part worth examining. Bringing Delhi–Mumbai down towards twelve hours would place the overnight journey firmly inside a single sleep, which is the threshold at which rail competes seriously with the air shuttle between the two cities on total door-to-door time.

It is also an incremental target rather than a transformational one. This is a conventional corridor being raised to 160 kmph, not a new high-speed line — the separate bullet train project is a different undertaking, on a different alignment, at a different cost.

That is the sensible way to read Mission Raftaar. Its gains come from removing the constraints that stop existing track being used at the speeds the rolling stock can already manage: insufficient power, older signalling, overhead wiring not rated for the pantograph forces at speed, and yard geometry from an earlier era.

The substations either side of it

Chhata is one entry in a commissioning programme running across the section, and the others give a sense of the pace.

Power supply installations already charged include Kosikalan SP, Mathura SP and Sholaka SSP. Vrindavan SSP is in final testing, and Kotwan SSP was targeted for final testing by 15 September. The Hodal and Ajhai facilities are due for commissioning during September, the RDE TSS is targeted for 25 September, and the Rundhi TSS and its transmission line are planned for grid integration in October.

That is roughly one energisation a fortnight through autumn, on one section of one corridor.

Watching it from one room

The other element is software rather than steel. The railway plans to integrate SCADA — supervisory control and data acquisition — allowing the power supply network to be monitored and controlled remotely from the Agra control hub.

Centralised monitoring matters more at higher speeds than it sounds. A faster railway has less slack in its timetable to absorb a fault, so finding one quickly matters more.

What has not been announced

No completion date has been published for the Palwal–Mathura upgrade, for the Mathura–Bhuteshwar section, or for 160 kmph running across the full Delhi–Mumbai route. Nor has the railway said when a twelve-hour service might actually be timetabled, or which trains would run to it.

What has been stated is narrower and verifiable: one substation charged on 7 September, one 84-route-kilometre section under upgrade, and a defined list of works under way across it. On a corridor of this length, that is what progress looks like — one energised substation at a time, and a target still some distance down the line.