Railways to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with more coaches on seven routes amid rising demand

New Delhi: The Railway Board has decided to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with more coaches on seven operational routes after considering the high occupancy of passengers, according to officials.

These seven routes are Mangaluru Central-Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad–Tirupati, Chennai Egmore–Tirunelveli, Madurai–Bengaluru Cantt, Deoghar–Varanasi, Howrah– Rourkela and Indore–Nagpur.

The released trains will also be introduced on some other new routes.

The officials said that at present four 8 coaches (also called cars) and three 16 coaches Vande Bharat trains are operational on these routes.

“The 16-car train will be upgraded to 20-car and those having 8-car will be increased to 16-car,” Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information and Publicity, Railway Board, said.

“On the basis of occupancy for Financial Year 2025-26 (up to 31.07.2025) and feasibility for augmentation, a tentative augmentation of three 16-car Vande Bharat train services with 20-car and four 8-Car Vande Bharat train with 16-car has been planned,” he added.

The Board officials said that besides these upgrades, more 20-car Vande Bharat trains will be ready for launches and one 16-car train will be available for augmentation.

“A tentative replacement plan of Vande Bharat train service is planned on the basis of occupancy. After this, the released rakes (trains) of 16-Car and 8-Car will be utilized for running new services,” Kumar said.

As per scheduled upgradation, three routes -- Mangaluru Central–Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad–Tirupati, Chennai Egmore–Tirunelveli -- which have at present 16-car Vande Bharat will be upgraded to 20-car and the remaining four routes having 8-car Vande Bharat service will get 16-car trains.