Spending Rs. 3200 crore on just upgradation of the saturated Chennai-Banglore line to 160kmph is a wastage of money. Even after spending so much, there shall be hardly any improvement in sectional capacity, only a few trains shall be running at 160 kmph every day which shall be overtaking and slowing down more trains along the route.
With similar investment, a straight, shorter(about 270-290 km against present 360km) and much faster MAS-SBC route can can be created by constructing about 300km long line in following format. -Additional 130 km line parallel to existing line from MAS to Katpadi, 70 km new straight chord line between katpadi to Bangarpet (instead to much circuitous route via jolarpet and about 70 km line parallel...
more... from Bangarpet to SBC.
New line shall avoid curves and may take a detour if required from existing line. The new line be shorter by about 70-90 kms and shall permit more than 160kmph speed without any speed restrictions. The journey time of Shatabdi type Gatiman type train shall come down to less than 2 hrs 30 minutes only and a huge additional capacity shall be generated along the route to take care of anticipated future traffic for several years. More over there shall still be scope to increase the speed further to 180/200 due to better track geometry of the additional line.