India will soon begin work on a new bullet train railway network if, as widely expected, Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi becomes prime minister later this week.

Modi highlighted his support for bullet trains modelled on Japan's superfast railways in speeches at the start on the long election campaign.

He is planning to accelerate those plans as one of his top priorities if he is made prime minister.

He believes bullet trains could become symbols of a new age of modernisation in India in contrast to the old colonial railway network built during the British Raj.

Indian Railways (IR) today is associated with roof-riding fare-dodgers, while for paying passengers train travel is a grubby experience in carriages often infested with cockroaches and rats.

In a campaign speech in Delhi in January, Modi said India's railways had been neglected for too long. "We have such a huge rail network, but it is our misfortune that no attention is paid to railways in the country. The change that Japan's rail system has undergone, it deserves to be applauded.

After all that change occurred because Japan introduced the concept of bullet trains and got the country raised. China also followed that concept.

He said that "We have such a long rail network, but we are not thinking about its modernization."

He called for new "rail universities" to be opened as centers for engineering innovation and pledged to open four new bullet train routes in time for India to celebrate its 75th anniversary of independence in 2022. Then, he said, the "world will see India from a new perspective".

Feasibility studies had been done for bullet train routes from Ahmedabad to Pune via Mumbai and Delhi to Amritsar, close to the Pakistan border, via Chandigarh. Building a Bullet Train system will cost three times more than standard Indian rail tracks and carriages and higher fares will mean it will only be affordable for wealthier passengers, R.N Malhotra, a former chairman of the Indian Railway Board, said.