Indian Railways set for third Vande Bharat train’s speed-trial

The Indian Railways is gearing up to conduct trials of the newly designed third rake of the semi-high speed Vande Bharat train, which has better features than the existing two trains in service.

The newly designed train reached Chandigarh where the trials will be conducted before being rolled out for passenger services. The train will be tested on regular, poor, and excellent tracks in different divisions for two months, railway ministry officials said.

Union railway minister Ashwani Vaishnaw on Thursday tweeted, “Getting ready to roll - 3rd Vande Bharat Train reaches stabling line in Chandigarh for speed trial.”

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The train was rolled out by Vaishnaw from the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai on August 12.

In the trial process, the Vande Bharat train will be tested at a speed of 180 kmph and will traverse 15,000 km. Following the trials, the ICF will manufacture more such trains. As many as 475 such trains will be manufactured over four years to cover all states, said the officials.

Besides ICF, the Vande Bharat trains will also be manufactured at the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala, and the Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareli.

The prototype Vande Bharat express train rolled out at ICF has features like reclining chairs for passengers, toilets accessible for the differently abled, automatic opening of doors, comfortable space in the driver’s cabin for the locomotive pilots.

The new Vande Bharat Express will be equipped with better heat ventilation and air-conditioning control by using a higher efficiency compressor with UV lamp for germ-free supply of air.

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The railways earlier said it will roll out 75 Vande Bharat rakes by August 2023 connecting different parts of the country.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget for 2022-23, had said that 400 new energy efficient Vande Bharat trains will be introduced in three years.

At present, the railways is operating two Vande Bharat trains—one between New Delhi and Varanasi, and the second one between New Delhi and Katra.