Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off nine Vande Bharat trains, including two services on the South Central Railways (SCR) on Sunday. These trains will connect religious and tourist destinations across 11 states.
The prime minister inaugurated Vande Bharat train service between Kacheguda – Yesvantpur and Vijayawada – MGR Chennai routes through video conferencing.
PM Modi spoke about India’s success on many fronts including that ISRO’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-3, solar mission Aditya L1, and that of G20 Summit under India’s presidency. PM Modi said, “Speed, the scale of infrastructure development is matching aspirations of 140 crore Indians…Today people of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand and Gujarat will get the facility of Vande Bharat Express trains. These new Vande Bharat Express trains depict the new energy of the country.”
“That day is not far when Vande Bharat trains will connect each and every part of the country,” the prime minister said, adding that, “Popularity of Vande Bharat trains constantly rising; over 1,11,00,000 passengers have already travelled in them.”
The inauguration also witnessed Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in attendance.
“These trains are a step towards realising the prime minister’s vision of improving connectivity across the country and providing world-class facilities to rail passengers,” the official statement said.
LATEST UPDATES
– Indian Railways Planning to Launch Vande Metro, Sleeper Version of Vande Bharat
The Indian Railways is also looking to launch a sleeper version of the Vande Bharat and Vande Metro before this fiscal ends next year. According to railway officials, the semi-high speed train series will also have a non-air conditioned push-pull version with 22 coaches and a locomotive, which will be launched in October 2024.
The sleeper version will be rolled out by March 2024. The coaches for both the sleeper version as well as the metro are being made by Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory (ICF). Vande Metro will be ready by the end of 2023 and rolled out in January or February next year.
– West Bengal to Get Two More Vande Bharat Trains
West Bengal is getting two more Vande Bharat trains between the routes of Patna-Howrah and Ranchi-Howrah and the twin cities of Howrah-Kolkata. These trains in West Bengal were flagged off by PM Modi virtually.
Preparations for the semi high-speed services on the Patna-Howrah route has already begun along with strengthening the tracks on Patna-Jhajha-Asansol-Burdwan-Howrah main line.
The new rakes for the Patna-Howrah and Ranchi-Howrah routes will have 25 new features, officials said. The train — in approximately 6 hours and 30 minutes — will cover a distance of 535 km, this makes it the fastest direct train between Patna and Kolkata.
– New Vande Bharat Trains to Become Fastest Trains on Major Routes
The Kacheguda – Yesvantpur Vande Bharat will be the fastest train of this route, with a seating capacity of 530 passengers. In comparison to other train services between these two cities, this Vande Bharat will have the least journey time.
The Vande Bharat train on Vijayawada – MGR Chennai Central route — with a seating capacity of 530 passengers — will be the first and fastest train on the route.
These Vande Bharat trains will cut travel time between destinations by three hours in the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar-Puri and Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram routes; more than two and a half hours for Hyderabad-Bengaluru; more than two hours for Tirunelveli-Madurai-Chennai; about one hour for Ranchi-Howrah, Patna-Howrah and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad; about half an hour for between Udaipur and Jaipur.
– The New Vande Bharat Trains to Connect Destinations Across 11 States
The nine trains that the prime minister flagged off will connect across 11 states, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand and Gujarat, of these three are poll-bound.
The nine new Vande Bharat Express Trains are:
- Kerala (Kasaragod-Thiruvanthapuram)
- Rajasthan (Jaipur-Udaipur)
- Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (Vijayawada-Chennai)
- Tamil Nadu (Tirunelveli-Chennai)
- Gujarat (Jamnagar-Ahmedabad)
- Jharkhand and West Bengal (Ranchi-Howrah)
- Telangana and Karnataka [Secunderabad (Kacheguda)-Bengaluru (Yesvantpur)]
- Odisha (Rourkela-Puri)
- Bihar and West Bengal (Patna-Howrah)– First Vande Bharat Express And What it Symbolises
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first Vande Bharat Express on February 15, 2019 on the New Delhi-Varanasi route. The train set — manufactured at Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory — symbolises the Make-in-India initiative and represents the prowess of Indian engineering.
The project to manufacture semi-high-speed trains in India began in mid-2017 and within a year and a half the ICF completed Train-18. The first semi-high-speed train of the nation was renamed as Vande Bharat Express — to highlight its Made-in-India status — in January 2019. On the Kota-Sawai Madhopur section, the train achieved a maximum speed of 180 kmph.
(with inputs from ANI and PTI)
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