Ranchi/Patna: On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off five new Vande Bharat trains, including one connecting Ranchi in Jharkhand to the Bihar capital, Patna, and two connecting Rani Kamalapati station in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal to the state’s Jabalpur and Indore.
The two other Vande Bharat routes inaugurated by the PM included the one connecting Madgaon, in Goa, to Mumbai and Karnataka’s Dharwad to the state capital Bengaluru.
While the PM was present in Bhopal — in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh — to flag off the two trains from Rani Kamalapati railway station, the other new Vande Bharat routes were inaugurated virtually by him. Madhya Pradesh will see voting for the assembly later this year.
“I congratulate the people of Madhya Pradesh for getting two Vande Bharat Express trains today [Tuesday]. The journey from Bhopal to Jabalpur will be faster and more comfortable now. Vande Bharat train will boost connectivity in the state,” news agency ANI tweeted Modi as saying.
Tuesday’s launch come weeks after the three-train tragedy in Odisha — involving the Coromandel Express, the Sir M. Visvesvaraya-Howrah Superfast Express and a freight train — on 2 June, resulting in the loss of at least 288 lives.
The accident came days after the Kolkata-Puri Vande Bharat was inaugurated last month. While the Madgaon-Mumbai Vande Bharat was set to be inaugurated a day after the accident, on 3 June, the PM had postponed it in the wake of the accident.
The new semi-high-speed trains launched Tuesday are part of the government’s initiative to modernise the Indian railway network and provide faster and more comfortable travel options to passengers.
The launch in Ranchi was attended by Jharkhand Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan. Lauding the facilities provided onboard, Radhakrishnan told the gathered media that it was his maiden journey on a Vande Bharat train and that these trains demonstrated to the world the strides India had taken in the field of technology.
The Ranchi-Patna Vande Bharat, comprising seven AC chair-car coaches and one executive class coach, has the capacity to carry about 600 passengers.
Aditya Chaudhary, chief public relations officer, South-Eastern Railway, told ThePrint that the Ranchi-Patna Vande Bharat Express follows a new Ranchi-Koderma route, which would reduce overall travel time to six hours. There will be five stops between the two junctions — Ranchi and Patna — and the train will run six days a week, except on Tuesdays.
He added that the new train would help passengers travel 30 percent faster between Ranchi and Patna, as compared to the next fastest train, Jan Shatabdi Express, which takes about eight hours to complete the journey. Railway officials clarified, however, that the older train does not follow the same route.
Pointing out that the reduced travel time would benefit students, business people and those travelling for treatment, Choudhary said, “The coaches [of Vande Bharat] are equipped with talk-back buttons, which passengers can use to talk to the guard in case of medical emergencies”.
Pointing out that the upholstery for the train was “completely made in India”, he further said that the Ranchi-Patna Vande Bharat would be the first such in Jharkhand and Bihar.
Vande Bharat special features
The five Vande Bharat trains flagged off Tuesday add to an existing fleet travelling on 18 routes, the first of which was launched in 2019 to connect Delhi and Varanasi.
Unlike regular trains, the Vande Bharat Express trains are designed to offer superior comfort and speed to passengers, with features, such as touch-free sliding doors, reclining seats, rotating seats in executive class, 32-inch display screens in every coach, handicap-friendly washrooms and seat numbers in Braille.
The trains have a futuristic look with a nose cone-shaped driver cabin. The trains can also accelerate from 0 to 100 km per hour in just 52 seconds, and reach a maximum speed of 160 km per hour.
Vande Bharat trains are also equipped with ‘KAVACH’, a train collision avoidance system. The trains are also equipped with four platform side cameras, which include rear view cameras outside each coach, and four emergency windows in each coach.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)