South India’s first Vande Bharat train on tracks for trial run

The trial run of south India’s first Vande Bharat Express between Chennai and Mysuru via Bengaluru began on Monday. It is the country’s fastest train designed to clock a maximum speed of 180 km per hour,

Vande Bharat Express manufactured indigenously at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) began the trial run at 5.50 am from the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M G Ramachandran Central Railway Station. The train is expected to reach Bengaluru at 10.30 am and Mysuru at 12.30 pm.

“The trial run has begun, and the train will go till Mysuru and come back to Chennai tonight,” a Southern Railway official told DH. The Vande Bharat express will be launched between the two cities via Bengaluru on November 11 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The new train will be a new addition to the busy Chennai-Mysuru railway line along with the Shatabdi Express that has been chugging along the route since 1994.

The Vande Bharat Express will be the third to the number of prestigious trains connecting Chennai with Bengaluru. The Southern Railway is already running a Shatabdi Express between Chennai and Bengaluru, six days a week.

Though the Vande Bharat Express can chug at a maximum speed of 180 km per hour, it can run only at an average speed of 75 km per hour and 110 km per hour in a few stretches as the tracks on the route can only withstand the above-mentioned speed.

The sources added that the work on increasing the speed to 130 km from Chennai to Jolarpet is in full swing and the new train can clock the speed when the tracks are ready.

The new train, though will provide a new experience to travellers on the busy route, will not bring much cheer on the travel time as it is expected to reduce only by a few minutes from the current seven hours taken by the Shatabdi.

The new train will be preferred by professionals who shuttle between the two cities since the time taken by it is just one hour less than the total time drill involved in taking a flight from Chennai and reaching Bengaluru from the airport.

The train set consisting of 16 coaches is indigenously designed and will be free of locomotives since traction motors will be fitted underneath each coach to render them self-propelled.

The Vande Bharat Express is a fully air-conditioned train with Second Class and premium First Class and boasts of automatic doors, vacuum toilets, comfortable doors, on-board infotainment, and facilities for people with special needs.

This will be the fifth Vande Bharat Express train in the country with four trains already running between New Delhi-Varanasi, New Delhi-Katra, Mumbai-Gandhinagar, and New Delhi-Una.

The Chennai-Mysuru Shatabdi, which completed 28 years of service in May this year, is the first such prestigious train in South India having begun its first journey on May 11, 1994.

From 10 coaches in 1994, the train now boasts of sixteen coaches, including one Anubhuti and one Executive Class, and has added another stop at Katpadi from 2016.