safety mechanisms says shiv gopal mishra general secretary of the allindia railwaymens federation we carry 2 crore people on 18000 trains daily the needs cant be ignored while everybody agrees that the railways needs reforms there is no agreement on how to go about it while some officials and experts are in love with the chinese model different tracks the planning commission has been quietly pushing for more private participation in fact the government has already initiated multibillion dollar projects including a 90b freight corridor to connect delhi and mumbai ironically the drama around dinesh trivedis railway budget his subsequent resignation and the rollback of fares was played out in the name of aam admi railway officials blame various railway ministers for the mess a rail bhawan official blames the bunch of jokers that have been railway ministers in the past 20 years according to r c acharya a former member of the railway board unless the political class stops viewing the railways as a platform for patronage disbursal it cant be what it is supposed to be the nations lifeline various ministers have used the railways to win friends and influence people the organisation be damned says acharya they keep adding new trains every year without considering the economic viability of new routes in private officials agree that turning the railways around into a cash cow privatizing it is not a good idea if the government can spend rs 2 lakh crore every year on defence why cant it manage money for the railways which keeps the largest chunk of indias traveling people connected to their jobs and families india needs trains and the railways need money unlike the defence services the railways always remains at war moving millions of passengers and over 3m tonnes of freight everyday over its 64000 km of network come hell or high water says acharya if only the railways could make train journeys safe for ordinary indians berth pangsnetwork in 1947 india had 53396 km of railway network china had only 27000 km growth in 2010 indias rail network was 64000 km chinas network then was 100000 km pace of change indias network is growing at 400 km per year chinas is growing at 2000 km per year speed delhimumbai rajdhani express takes 15 hours to traverse 1380 km the bullet train from beijing to shanghai covers a distance of 1460 km in five hours