The document summarizes news from The Wall Street Journal dated October 10, 2016. It discusses several topics: - Samsung temporarily halted production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone due to reports of overheating and fires in replacement devices. - Some residents in the wealthy German region of Swabia are taking German language lessons to lose their regional dialects, which can be difficult to understand for others. - The debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was acrimonious, with personal attacks and accusations between the candidates. - The death toll from Hurricane Matthew rose in the U.S. and Haiti, where shortages of food and water raised risks of a humanitarian crisis. - Britain

1. The Wall Street Journal - 10/10/2016 Page : A001
Copyright (c)2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 10/10/2016
October 10, 2016 1:00 pm (GMT -1:00) Powered by TECNAVIA
Copy Reduced to 46% from original to fit letter page
* * * * * * * MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2016 ~ VOL. CCLXVIII NO. 85 WSJ.com HHHH $3.00
CONTENTS
Business News... B2-3
Crossword................. B5
Election 2016.... A4-8
Global Finance........ C3
Heard on Street.... C6
Journal Report R1-10
Media & Marketing B5
Opinion.............. A15-17
Sports.......................... B6
Technology............... B4
U.S. News............. A2-3
Weather..................... B5
World News.. A10-14
s Copyright 2016 Dow Jones &
Company. All Rights Reserved
>
What’s
News
Trump dismissed his lewd
comments in a video as
“locker-room talk,” and he
sought to shift the focus to
ex-President Bill Clinton’s in-
fidelities in a rancorous de-
bate with Hillary Clinton. She
broadly disputed Trump’s as-
sertions and said he is unfit
to be president. A1, A6, A8
Undecided voters said
the harsh tone of the de-
bate favored neither presi-
dential candidate. A4
The GOP nominee de-
nounced Republicans who
abandoned his candidacy af-
ter the video surfaced. A6
Haiti struggled to re-
build after Hurricane Mat-
thew, but shortages of food
and water raise the risk of
a humanitarian crisis. A10
The Carolinas were
pounded with strong winds
and floods. The U.S. death
toll rose to at least 18. A3
A deadly airstrike in Ye-
men prompted the U.S. to
begin a review of the Saudi-
led military campaign. A13
German police arrested a
Syrian refugee suspected of
planning a bomb attack. A12
A suspect was held in the
shooting deaths of two Cali-
fornia police officers. A2
Pope Francis said he
would appoint 17 new car-
dinals in November. A12
Chicago teachers threat-
ened to go on strike if a
tentative contract agree-
ment isn’t reached. A3
Samsung temporarily
halted production of its
troubled Galaxy Note 7 as it
struggles to manage a recall
of the smartphone. A1
A weaker pound has
softened Brexit’s impact on
the U.K. economy, but de-
bate remains over how long
that cushion will work. A1
The pound’s plunge high-
lights how thinner currency-
trading desks exacerbate
volatility, analysts say. C1
Soaring insulin prices
reflect the role of phar-
macy-benefit managers. B1
NBC was on the defensive
over the recording of its
“Today” co-anchor in lewd
conversation with Trump. B1
Alibaba is forming an
alliance with Spielberg’s
Amblin Partners to produce
and distribute movies. B3
Oracle is extending the
deadline for its $9.3 billion
NetSuite bid amid concerns
it undervalues the firm. B4
Stocks, bonds, oil and
gold have climbed in tandem,
raising concerns the markets
also could fall together. C1
Asian nations are step-
ping up purchases of Iranian
oil, underscoring Tehran’s
ties with the region. C3
Ant Financial named a
new CEO as the firm gears
up for an IPO next year. C1
Merck’s immune booster
showed promise in treating
lung-cancer patients. B2
Business&Finance
World-Wide
Samsung Puts a Halt
To Its Galaxy Note 7
of catching fire.
The production halt under-
scores the growing serious-
ness with which Samsung is
dealing with its largest-ever
product recall. Last month,
Samsung officials shrugged off
reports of overheated batter-
ies, calling the incidents “iso-
lated cases” related to issues
of mass production.
In a separate statement a
few days later, it said in re-
sponse to reports about ab-
normal battery charging levels
in its replacement phones that
“the issue does not pose a
safety concern.”
While Samsung hasn’t con-
firmed the latest reports of
problems with its replacement
Please see PHONE page A2
Samsung Electronics Co.
has temporarily halted pro-
duction of its troubled Galaxy
Note 7, according to a person
familiar with the matter, the
latest setback for the South
Korean technology giant as it
struggles to manage a recall of
2.5 million smartphones.
Samsung’s move comes af-
ter a spate of fresh reports of
overheating and fires with
phones that have been distrib-
uted to replace the original
devices, which also had a risk
By Jonathan Cheng
and Eun-Young Jeong
in Seoul and
Trisha Thadani
in San Francisco
STUTTGART—On a recent
Friday afternoon, inside a
cream-colored stucco house
on this city’s northeast side, a
group of adults gathered to
learn German. As they recited
the days of the week, Ariane
Willikonsky instructed them
to hold a thumb knuckle be-
tween their teeth to help re-
lax their jaws and bring out
the deep, resonant sound of
perfect Hochdeutsch, or stan-
dard German. Some drool
came with it.
These students weren’t im-
migrants—but natives of Swa-
BY ZEKE TURNER
Who Needs German Lessons? Some Germans, Apparently
i i i
Swabia’s dialect has locals putting hand to mouth; drool drills
bia, Germany’s
economic pow-
erhouse. To one
moist hand, a
Rolex was
strapped.
As it hap-
pens, making
cars and expen-
sive industrial
machines is the
region’s strong
suit. Speaking
German isn’t.
Swabia is located inside
the state of Baden-Württem-
berg, where Stuttgart is the
capital. It is home to some of
Germany’s largest businesses,
including Robert
Bosch GmbH and
Porsche SE. Near
Ms. Willikonsky’s
language school, on
the outskirts of
Stuttgart, there is
a square named for
Daimler and a
street that cele-
brates Mercedes.
For Germans,
Swabia is known
for its discreet af-
fluence, thrift, hard work and
lack of debt. The region en-
joys high growth and virtually
no unemployment. After the
Please see SWABIA page A14
Swabian language
student
Lastweek: DJIA 18240.49 g 67.66 0.4% NASDAQ 5292.40 g 0.4% STOXX600 339.64 g 1.0% 10-YR.TREASURY g 1 5/32, yield 1.734% OIL $49.81 À $1.57 EURO $1.1203 YEN 102.96
Risk of a Bubble
In Bonds
INVESTING IN FUNDS & ETFS
JOURNAL REPORT | R1-10
INSIDE THE MIND
OF A CHICAGO CUBS FAN
JASON GAY | B6
DYLANBUELL/GETTYIMAGES
Rivals Seethe in Brutal Debate
Trump, Clinton trade
personal attacks and
air policy differences
in rancorous town hall
CHIPSOMODEVILLA/GETTYIMAGES
DEBATE NIGHT: Presidential nominees Donald Trump, left, and Hillary Clinton took the stage for the second U.S. presidential debate on
Sunday night, held in St. Louis. Following tradition, the debate was a town-hall style event. See WSJ.com for the latest coverage.
’It’s just awfully good that someone with
the temperament of Donald Trump is not in
charge of the law in our country.’
HILLARY CLINTON
‘Because you’d
be in jail.’
DONALD TRUMP
Undecided voters put off
by tone.................................... A4
Trump confronts party
rebellion.................................. A6
NBC on defensive over
recording................................. B1
ST. LOUIS—Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton delivered
some of the presidential cam-
paign's most acerbic attacks
yet in a town-hall debate Sun-
day, with the Republican nomi-
nee accusing his Democratic
opponent of having “hate in
her heart” and she countering
that her rival doesn’t tell the
truth.
The debate landed amid one
of the most convulsive periods
of the campaign, in which a
steady procession of prominent
Republicans have sworn off
their presidential nominee af-
ter seeing a 2005 video in
which he boasted about mak-
ing unwanted sexual advances.
Each candidate came to
their second showdown with a
mission: Mr. Trump to stop the
exodus of support for his can-
didacy by officials in his party;
Mrs. Clinton to take advantage
of some fresh momentum. By
the end of the exchange, it
seemed likely that both may
have achieved their aims.
An unbowed Mr. Trump dis-
missed as “locker-room talk”
the video of him speaking
crudely about groping women,
and he sought to shift the fo-
cus to the infidelities of former
President Bill Clinton, his op-
ponent’s husband.
“I’m not proud of it,” he said
of his 2005 words, but added
that Mr. Clinton’s actions were
worse. “There’s never been
anybody in the history of poli-
tics in this nation that’s been
so abusive to women,” he said.
“Bill Clinton was abusive to
women. Hillary Clinton at-
tacked those same women.”
Please see DEBATE page A8
By Colleen McCain
Nelson,
Beth Reinhard
and Michael C. Bender
Donald Trump entered Sun-
day night’s debate both lacer-
ated and liberated.
He had been lacerated by
the release of a now infamous
videotape in
which he talked
about how he se-
duces women,
including married women.
And he was liberated by es-
sentially declaring his inde-
pendence from the Republican
party and its leading figures,
many of whom abandoned him
over the release of that tape.
So the question approach-
ing an epic presidential debate
Sunday night was whether, in
this new phase, a liberated
Donald Trump could stop the
bleeding and get back on his
feet. In the first half hour, that
seemed unlikely. But then, over
the next hour, he appeared to
succeed.
In those raucous opening
minutes, Hillary Clinton de-
clared that Mr. Trump isn’t fit
to be president of the United
States. In return, he promised
that, if he is elected, he will or-
der his attorney general to ap-
point a special prosecutor to
investigate her.
And those were only the
highlights of an opening phase
that was simply shocking in
the intense nature of the per-
sonal attacks between the two
people vying to become the
next president of the United
States. And that seemed un-
likely to allow him to recover.
Then a different kind of de-
bate evolved—one that was
still pointed and nasty, but
substantive.
Mr. Trump, who had
seemed on his heels at the out-
set, recovered to deliver an ef-
fective critique of President
Barack Obama’s health-care
overhaul. He defended his
seemingly friendly attitude to-
ward Russian President Vladi-
mir Putin by saying simply
that it’s worth getting along
with Russia if the Kremlin will
help attack Islamic State.
At one remarkable point in
discussing the vicious civil war
Please see RACE page A6
Hurricane Leaves a Deadly Trail
TOLL RISES: Norfolk, Va., above, was hit by floodwaters from
Hurricane Matthew on Sunday as the death toll in the U.S. rose to
at least 18 and climbed further into the hundreds in Haiti. A3, A10
BILLTIERNAN/THEDAILYPRESS/ASSOCIATEDPRESS
goes in large part to the de-
cline of the British pound,
which has acted as a giant
shock absorber against Brexit.
It fell 11% against the dollar
in two trading days after the
vote, and after another sud-
den slump last week is now
down 16%.
Seen from abroad, British
people are one-sixth poorer
and their economy is one-sixth
smaller. In the past week, fig-
ures from the International
Monetary Fund suggest, Brit-
ain has slid from the world’s
fifth-largest economy to sixth,
behind its millennium-old rival
France.
But suffering Brexit’s pain
through the currency may be
more comfortable than
through higher unemployment
or other ills—a luxury that
wasn’t available to eurozone
countries during the currency
bloc’s debt crisis. Over the
longer term, economic wisdom
holds that a weaker currency
will boost a nation’s sales
abroad, so what the economy
loses in the form of lower con-
sumption—because consumers
are poorer—will be recovered
through higher exports.
“It is important that you
Please see POUND page A14
When the U.K. voted to
leave the European Union in
June, the pound took its worst
beating in half a century.
Many economists saw that as
a good thing.
Despite the shock of Brexit,
more than three months later
there are few tangible signs of
economic distress in Britain:
Employment is steady. The
stock market has held up. Gov-
ernment bonds are strong.
Houses are still being bought
and sold. Consumers are still
consuming.
Credit, say economists,
BY JON SINDREU
AND CHRISTOPHER WHITTALL
Pound’s Pounding Helped
U.K. Absorb Brexit Shock
Ian Talley: Political uncertainty
weighs on growth.................... A2
BY GERALD F. SEIB
ANALYSIS
A Reeling Trump Regains Footing
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2. The Wall Street Journal - 10/10/2016 Page : A014
Copyright (c)2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 10/10/2016
October 10, 2016 1:01 pm (GMT -1:00) Powered by TECNAVIA
Copy Reduced to 46% from original to fit letter page
A14 | Monday, October 10, 2016 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
WORLD NEWS
and businesspeople from the
region desperate to lick their
accents—something Ms. Wil-
likonsky, 50, has turned into a
thriving business.
Dieter Schenk, 50, is the
managing director of Zinco
GmbH, a Swabian company
that installs roof gardens atop
buildings. He said that at pre-
sentations in Berlin and Ham-
burg, attendees used to tell him
“ach, you’re Swabian” with a
wink. “You don’t know if it’s
meant in a nice way,” he said.
“It can be hard.”
After seeing Ms. Willikon-
sky on television, he and his
wife enrolled in the single-ses-
sion course, which costs about
€350, or about $390. The drills
last for seven hours and focus
on eliminating the telltale
Swabian sound.
Linguists say the regional
dialect emerged during the
New High German Diphthongi-
zation in the Middle Ages,
Ariane Willikonsky helps students who want to lose Swabian accents.
OLIVERWILLIKONSKY
India’s Bold Bid to Run Trains on Time
Narendra Modi’s government is pumping money into rail to ease bottlenecks and boost the country’s economic growth
Railway workers on the tracks at Mughalsarai Junction, midway between Delhi and Kolkata.
RAYMONDZHONG/THEWALLSTREETJOURNAL
flexibility that has been one of
the fundamental problems
that Europe has,” said Derek
Halpenny, economist at Bank
of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd.
“The flexibility of exchange
rates is the big positive that
the U.K. has going forward.”
According to most eco-
nomic textbooks, a cheaper
currency makes local compa-
nies more internationally com-
petitive, while curbing imports
in favor of local production.
Some see tentative signs this
is already happening in the
U.K., crediting the weaker
pound for a small summer re-
bound in manufacturing.
Manufacturers like Nissan
Motor Co., which owns the
U.K.’s largest car factory, in
Sunderland, England, may be
the main beneficiaries of a
weaker currency—assuming
they can handle whatever new
tariff barriers they face in the
EU once the U.K. leaves.
For the tourism industry, a
weaker pound makes U.K. ho-
tels cheaper for foreigners. In-
terContinental Hotels Group
PLC, which has long been opti-
mistic about the effects of Br-
exit, said it got a boost in the
first half of the year because a
weaker sterling slashed its
costs.
But many economists are
skeptical the pound can ever
offset the trade impact of
withdrawing from the EU. Tar-
iffs with the EU would hurt
exporters.
“I don’t think there’s any
amount of sterling deprecia-
tion that can shock-absorb for
the loss of economic poten-
tial,” said George Magnus, se-
nior economic adviser at the
Swiss bank UBS Group AG.
low economies to absorb
shocks in two main ways:
They let the currency bear the
brunt of capital outflows,
rather than stocks and bonds,
while boosting the competi-
tiveness of local businesses on
the global stage.
A floating currency allows a
nation to set interest rates,
steering the price of financial
assets. By contrast, under a
pegged-currency regime, in
times of turmoil, bonds and
equities are left to crash.
Banks are left scrambling for
liquidity.
Take the FTSE 250 stock-
market index, which lists me-
dium-size companies doing a
lot of business in the U.K. For
dollar-based investors, it has
plunged 13% since the Brexit
vote, but for locals measuring
it in pounds, it has risen al-
most 4%.
Furthermore, the U.K.’s
largest companies, such as
British American Tobacco PLC,
GlaxoSmithKline PLC and As-
traZeneca PLC, make most of
their income abroad. Their
shares have surged because
with a weaker pound, their
revenues look much beefier.
The FTSE 100 index, which
comprises mostly such multi-
nationals, is up 11% since the
vote—although that rise is
less than the pound’s fall
against the dollar.
By possessing its own cur-
rency, the U.K. is able to de-
ploy monetary and fiscal stim-
ulus at will. U.K. Treasury
chief Philip Hammond recently
signaled that the government
would ramp up spending in in-
frastructure to offset the pos-
sible impact of Brexit on con-
sumer and business
A-sounds come out nasal. They
make Er-and Or-sounds, ubiqui-
tous in German, at the back of
the mouth instead of up front,
which Ms. Willikonsky said
sounds “like Donald Duck talk.”
Swabians confuse S-sounds,
turning “last” into “lashed.”
Their carefree approach to
vowel groups can sound like
someone speaking in tongues—
or without one altogether.
Whereas most Germans
might ask for an egg—“ein
Ei,”— some Swabians request
“oy oy.”
In most countries, it’s
mainly rich folk who scorn dia-
lects. From London to Paris,
from Beijing to New York, peo-
ple with regional accents have
long been dismissed as bump-
kins, buffoons or simply poor.
Germany has turned that
prejudice on its head. Gerhard
Raff, 70, a historian who writes
a newspaper column in Swa-
bian, said other Germans ridi-
cule the dialect “probably be-
cause we’re so successful—it’s
just jealousy.”
Yet the stigma has left thou-
sands of managers, executives
when south-westerners spun
off their own approach to
vowels.
“It’s much softer,” said Mr.
Mantel, the comedian.
To help get their sounds in
order, Ms. Willikonsky tells her
students to practice speaking
with puckered lips by holding a
ring of fingers around their
mouths. For Er-sounds, she
gives them tongue twisters like
one that translates as “the fa-
ther and the mother play
sports, the kids are sports re-
porters.”
Some Swabians said the
course simply helped them to
better communicate with peo-
ple from outside the region.
Wolfram Fischer, 58, a Swa-
bian with decades of executive
experience at companies like
Siemens AG, recalled bringing
his family to a work party with
colleagues from Düsseldorf.
“Their kids had no idea what
my kids were saying,” Mr. Fis-
cher said.
For a few, carrying the ac-
cent outside the region’s bor-
ders can leave them vulnerable
to public shaming.
Günther Oettinger, a former
governor of Baden-Württem-
berg turned European commis-
sioner, has such a strong accent
that even his English sounds
Swabian. That distinction
caused the press to taunt him.
“Oettinger disgraces himself
with lousy English,” was one
headline from Bild, Germany’s
leading daily tabloid.
And then there’s Hubert
Wicker. A top official in Baden-
Württemberg’s economic min-
istry, he started a crusade to
keep the dialect from extinc-
tion. Founded a decade ago, his
association, the Supporters of
the Swabian Dialect, now has
1,500 members and enjoys
sponsorships from the region’s
savings banks.
Money raised by the group
supports an ethnological unit
at the University of Tübingen
that specializes in Swabian dia-
lects.
“If somebody wants to speak
a language that doesn’t belong
to him,” said Hubert Klaus-
mann, the research unit’s direc-
tor, “it shows that he wants to
be better than he is.”
2008 financial crisis, Chancel-
lor Angela Merkel famously
extolled the Swabian house-
wife as a model of frugal eco-
nomic virtue.
Yet for all their blessings,
the locals are also cursed with
what late-night television host
and famous Swabian Harald
Schmidt once described as a
“whiney…listless and nause-
ated” accent.
The rustic dialect, butt of in-
numerable jokes, can be simply
incomprehensible and, at
worst, viscerally annoying.
“People are just confused
from the sound,” said Ernst
Mantel, a 60-year- old Swa-
bian cabaret comedian who
has performed for Daimler AG,
banks and other local compa-
nies. At gigs in Hamburg and
Leipzig, he added, “we have to
change up the program so
people actually understand
what’s happening.”
In acoustic terms, Swabians’
ContinuedfromPageOne
SWABIA
have a live release valve like
this,” said Tim Haywood, an
investment director at GAM
Holding.
Brexit is a significant test
of that valve’s strength and re-
liability. In the short term, too
chaotic and deep a plunge in a
currency can trigger financial
panic.
On Friday, sterling plunged
to its lowest level in 31 years
against the dollar after briefly
tumbling over 6% in Asian
trade. It capped a rough week
for the currency after U.K
Prime Minister Theresa May
set a date for Britain’s exit
from the EU.
The largest recent hit to
the pound happened the day
after the Brexit vote on June
23, when it lost as much as
8%, the steepest single-day
drop against the dollar since
Nov. 18, 1967, according to
FactSet.
Back in 1967, U.K. officials
grappled to keep sterling
pegged to the dollar amid a
weakening economy and as
foreign investors pulled out of
the country. Finally, British
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
was forced to devalue the cur-
rency from $2.80 to $2.40, a
14% drop.
Britain was lucky not to be
pegging the currency when Br-
exit happened, analysts say.
“If they had had a fixed ex-
change rate it would have
blown up,” said Kenneth Rog-
off, economics professor at
Harvard University.
Flexible exchange rates al-
ContinuedfromPageOne
POUND
unemployment soared. Unlike
Britain, the troubled eurozone
countries, which incurred a lot
of debt during the crisis years,
now face the hardship of pay-
ing back that debt in a cur-
rency that they can’t print.
The alternative was growth
through higher exports. But
for poorer nations to make
their products more competi-
tive is hard when sharing a
currency with richer nations
like Germany and the Nether-
lands. In Greece, the hardest-
hit country, a faction of the
now-governing Syriza party
pressed the virtues of a flexi-
ble currency during the apex
of the nation’s crisis. Syriza,
and Greece, ultimately stuck
with the euro.
“It’s the lack of currency
floating rates.
What is more, financial
panics in emerging-market
economies, including Russia,
Brazil and South Africa, have
been mellowed over the past
few years by the exchange-
rate flexibility governments
have mustered.
The eurozone, whose coun-
tries share a currency, offers
an example of the danger a
fixed currency can pose. In
2011 and 2012, stock markets
in Spain and Italy plummeted
more than 40% and investors
dumped those countries’ sov-
ereign bonds.
Being part of the eurozone
also meant Southern Europe
couldn’t control monetary and
fiscal policy. Public spending
was cut, taxes went up and
confidence.
Britain also has the advan-
tage of a strong local financial
system, meaning both the gov-
ernment and private compa-
nies can easily borrow in
pounds. In contrast, in many
developing economies borrow-
ing happens in foreign curren-
cies. When the local currency
depreciates, foreign-currency
debts balloon and often be-
come unsustainable, which
happened in the Asian finan-
cial crisis of 1997.
In 1970, almost every coun-
try in the world had a pegged
exchange rate. Despite a cer-
tain rebound since the
mid-1990s, now about 47% do,
according to IMF data. The
world’s leading advanced
economies have all embraced
4.0
–0.5
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
%
2015 2016
Value of the pound
in U.S. dollars
FTSE 100 Index
Chugging Along
The pound has fallen sharply since the U.K.'s June vote to leave the
European Union, while U.K. markets and economic indicators have held up.
Sources: WSJ Market Data Group (pound, FTSE 100); U.K. Office for National Statistics (output) THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Vote
Percentage change in output
since the start of 2015
Industries
Services
$1.60
1.15
1.20
1.25
1.30
1.35
1.40
1.45
1.50
1.55
2015 2016
7200
5400
5600
5800
6000
6200
6400
6600
6800
7000
’15 ’16
has grown just 5%. With all
the stops and starts, cargo
trains limp along at 15 miles
an hour on average.
Delays and high freight
costs—India charges some of
the world’s highest cargo
rates to keep passenger fares
low—have caused more and
more goods to be moved on
clogged and unsafe roads.
But Mr. Modi’s ambitions
may fizzle unless his rail min-
ister, Suresh Prabhu, can rein-
vent the behemoth state oper-
ator that will actually do the
spending and building.
Indian Railways, whose 1.3
million workers make it
among the planet’s largest
nonmilitary employers, has
long struggled to cut costs
and deliver on network-expan-
sion plans. A government au-
dit of the 442 rail-construc-
tion projects active as of
March 2014 found that delays
and poor planning caused
costs to have ballooned 69%,
or $16 billion, over original
estimates. Seventy-five proj-
ects had been in the works for
more than 15 years, and three
for more than 30 years. Work
on 22 projects hadn’t started.
Mr. Prabhu has worked to
tighten up project manage-
ment and streamline bureau-
cracy. In the last budget year,
ended March 31, the ministry
added 1,750 miles of broad-
gauge track, beating its target
by 200 miles. Mr. Prabhu in
early 2015 announced 77 proj-
ects to widen and electrify a
total of 5,800 miles of lines.
Within a year, 69 had received
all the requisite approvals.
That process used to take
years.
To boost revenue, Mr.
Prabhu is trying—very gradu-
ally—to defy long-held politi-
cal opposition to raising pas-
senger fares.
First, tickets started being
printed a few months ago
with a gentle lesson in eco-
nomics: Your fare covers only
57% of Indian Railways’ costs.
Then, tickets in some classes
began being priced like plane
tickets: Their prices rise as
MUGHALSARAI, India—Ev-
ery day, mountains of coal and
iron ore rumble westward
through the labyrinthine rail
junction here, midway be-
tween Delhi and Kolkata.
Grain, fertilizer, steel and salt
move in the other direction.
All that cargo must bump
and jostle down the same
tracks as trains carrying mil-
lions of passengers a year,
which means the congestion
can seem unending.
“One train is never going
to just climb up over another,”
said B.M. Dixit, a station su-
perintendent at Mughalsarai
Junction.
India runs—slowly, halt-
ingly, not at all for hours at a
stretch—on its overburdened
railways. Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi is hoping that a
debt-fueled spending bonanza
will help. As brisk economic
growth fills New Delhi’s cof-
fers, Mr. Modi is splashing out
$18 billion in the year through
March to add 1,700 miles of
broad-gauge track to the net-
work and electrify 1,200 miles
of existing lines.
By 2020, he hopes to have
put $130 billion in total to-
ward making the trains run on
time. That’s more than double
what India budgeted for rail-
ways during the entire decade
through 2015.
The signs of India’s many
years of underinvestment in
infrastructure are stark.
Freight traffic has more than
doubled over the past two de-
cades, while total route length
BY RAYMOND ZHONG
more get sold.
If outright fare increases
are next, Mr. Prabhu seems
undaunted by potential politi-
cal fallout. “Politically, every-
thing is difficult,” he said in
an interview.
The strains on the network
are showing at Mughalsarai
Junction.
“There are days on which
[a] goods train crosses in
hardly 1½ hours,” said senior
operations manager Aadhar
Raj. Other days, it can take
six, he said. Or eight.
On a recent morning, a
train carrying soldiers bound
for the Pakistani border pulled
in—and barely moved for the
next three hours. At 7:28 a.m.,
one of the four phones on sta-
tion supervisor Ram Dayal
Mishra’s desk rang. It was the
driver of the military train,
which had been stopped for
45 minutes.
He had been given space
on Platform 3. Problem was,
the eastbound Duronto Ex-
press was already stopped
there. That train had been due
at 4:33; it arrived only at 7:24.
And before that, the platform
was occupied by the Udyan
Abha Toofan Express. It too
was running very late.
The military train managed
to reach Platform 3 half an
hour later, and its electric en-
gine was detached so it could
be swapped for a diesel one.
An hour or so later, the
military train’s new engine
was in place. The soldiers
aboard had stripped to their
undershirts in the stifling hu-
midity. Around 9:22, an assis-
tant on the platform gave the
go-ahead. The signal changed,
and the train, at long last, was
on its way.
—Aditi Malhotra
contributed to this article.
Off Track
India's railways, among the world's busiest, are under strain. Track
additions haven't kept pace with growing passenger and cargo traffic.
Passenger-miles traveled on railways, 2014, in billions*
Growth, 1992–2015† in India’s
*Number of passengers who traveled in 2014 multiplied by the average number of miles
traveled per passenger; †For fiscal years ending March 31
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.Sources: World Bank; Ministry of Railways, India
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
23rd
India
China
Japan
Russia
France
Germany
U.K.
U.S.
720
501
162
80
52
49
41
6
Rail-route length
Freight traffic
Passenger traffic
5.7
165.7
264.7
%
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