New Delhi: The first ‘saffron’ edition of Vande Bharat express train will be among the nine semi high speed train to be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually on September 24. The saffron-coloured train will run between Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram Central in Kerala. It will be second such train running in the statre.
The long-awaited Vande Bharat express trains between Patna and Howrah and Ranchi and Howrah are among the trains to be launched. “The train from Patna to Howrah mostly will cover Bengal from the Chittaranjan area to Howrah and another train from Ranchi is coming to Howrah. Both trains will reach Howrah station at about 10 pm,” CPRO east central railway (ECR) Birendra Kumar.
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The 2nd rake of Vande Bharat in Kerala is the India’s first Vande Bharat Express to wear an all new Saffron-Grey livery, replacing the current blue-white paint scheme. It’s the 28th rake of Indian-built semi-high-speed Vande Bharat Express. However, the saffron paint of the new carriages has irked citizen of India. The Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that the new colour of the indigenous train is “inspired by Indian Tricolour” adding that 25 improvements have done in the new Vande Bharat trains.
So far, 25 rakes of Vande Bharat Express are operational on their designated routes and two rakes are reserved. “The colour of this 28th rake is being changed on a trial basis,” a railway ministry official said.
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Apart from Bengal, Indore will get another Vande Bharat Express, this time to Jaipur.
At present, Indore has only one Vande Bharat — to Bhopal — but it is struggling to fill up seats because travelers have plenty of other travel options between the two cities. Bhopal, on the other hand, has Vande trains to Gwalior, Jabalpur and New Delhi as well. There are 25 Vande Bharat Expresses in the country, and the count will rise to 34 in a few days.
Officials said that the new routes are Jaipur-Udaipur, Patna-Howrah, Ranchi-Howrah, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Tirunelveli, Indore-Jaipur, Puri-Rourkela, Jaipur-Chandigarh and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad. The railways also conducted a successful trial run of the Vande Bharat Express train from Hyderabad to Bengaluru, covering a distance of 610 km in 7.5 hours.
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The Tirunelveli–Chennai Vande Bharat Express will also be flagged off on Sunday. The train is likely to be flagged off, with stops at Virudhunagar, Madurai, Dindigul, Trichy, and Villupuram. Another train will run on the Vijayawada-Chennai route via Renigunta, catering to passengers going to Tirupati.
The Gorakhpur-Lucknow Vande Bharat Express has faced stone pelting incidents, with windowpane damage reported three times.
