British Companies Design Very Interesting Low Priced Trains and Trams

No country knows India's railways better than Britain - the origins of India's magnificent railways in the years of the British Raj, are known to everyone. As India modernizes after decades of socialist stagnation, it has been working hard to come up with different people mover systems for it's cities. A huge population needs to be moved from home to work and back every day, and crowded roads, horrendous pollution from fossil fuels, and price and safety issues with individual transportation, stress the need for faster action on mass transportation systems. Of course, one of the challenges facing India is likely to be the source of power for any advanced transportation system. The country is building coal fired powerplants by the day, with more than a little support by stevedoring agencies and the Catholic church for anti nuclear groups whose bills are paid by these stevedores. If, however, clean power could be used to power these systems, it could be a substantial plus for India. Until recently, Canadian, Brazilian, Malaysian, and other companies have been awarded tenders in different parts of India. Curiously, one country has been absent - Britain, itself. We now find a British company TDI International developing a low priced no-frills light rail system to work on 19th century British rail lines that have not been used since the 1960s. These 19th century lines would match perfectly with India's 5ft 11 1/2" "Broad Gauge" and smaller "Metre Gauge" trains. TDI also builds modern tram lines that run on old tracks - Kolkata could do with an upgrade to it's crumbling transportation infrastructure. TDI aren't the only game in town for light transportation, though. There is a much older company that builds everything from fairground trains to modern people movers in the UK too, i.e. Severn Lamb Engineering. Once again, with a British company, India would have the right partner to modernize older suburban train lines in it's cities. I do think it is high time the Integral Coach Factory etc start signing up collaborations / joint ventures with these companies. India's people deserve much better infrastructure than they have available at the moment.