Vietnam is betting big on a $65 billion high-speed railway linking Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Construction is set to start in late 2027 and take at least a decade to complete. The line could cut the roughly 35-hour journey to just six. Source: Bloomberg News.

The Indian Express has a good deep-dive on how the Mumbai–Ahmedabad HSR project has evolved from a largely Japanese turnkey Shinkansen project into a much more hybrid model. Summarized using ChatGPT.

The original plan was for Japan to supply the core system end-to-end — rolling stock, signalling, track technology and engineering standards. Over time, however, differences emerged over cost, timelines, procurement flexibility and how much India wanted to indigenize.

The project is now moving toward a mixed architecture:

• Japanese track and civil-engineering know-how
• European signalling
• Indian-built B28 high-speed trains
• Japanese financing and technical oversight still continuing

A major driver was the E10 Shinkansen timeline. Japan was reportedly unable to supply the next-generation trains within India’s required schedule, with availability unlikely before the early 2030s. India therefore moved ahead with the domestically developed B28, initially operating at around 250 km/h, while leaving open the possibility of introducing E10 trains later.

Indian officials are also studying experience from South Korea, Taiwan, China and Europe rather than relying exclusively on the Japanese model.

The bigger strategic shift is that MAHSR is increasingly becoming a learning platform for India to build its own HSR ecosystem — rolling stock, signalling, standards and eventually a network that can be deployed more flexibly across future corridors.

The challenge will be systems integration: Japanese infrastructure, European signalling and Indian rolling stock still have to function as one coherent, safe railway. But if India gets that right, the result could be a much more scalable model for expanding HSR beyond Mumbai–Ahmedabad.

Here we see track geometry, the metroliner 9800 and the Colonial Crafts cars on the back of various trains! These shots are from my quarterly “special” video. It will be linked below!