Mini Vande Bharat Express likely to be launched soon, says report; check routes, travel time and more

Vande Bharat train: Indian Railways is likely to launch a mini version of the Vande Bharat Express train which will have 8 coaches. The mini Vande Bharat is expected to launch by March or April 2023 on a pilot basis. The design for the train is in its final stage, ET Now Swadesh reported. However, there is no official announcement from Railways yet.

The report suggested that the mini Vande Bharat Express will have a 4-5 hour run and cover shorter distances in 2-tier cities like Amritsar-Jammu, Kanpur-Jhansi, Jalandhar-Ludhiana, Coimbatore-Madurai, and Nagpur-Pune.

Currently, there are eight Vande Bharat trains running in the country on various routes, including Nagpur-Bilaspur, Delhi-Varanasi, Gandhinagar-Mumbai, and Chennai-Mysuru.

Sleeper Vande Bharat Express

Indian Railways also plans to introduce a sleeper version of the Vande Bharat Train. This version will be designed to travel at a speed of 220 km per hour, officials told PTI. However, these aluminium-made sleeper version trains will run at a speed of 200 km per hour on the tracks.

The chair car Vande Bharat Express trains will be replaced by Shatabdi Express in a phased manner, while the sleeper version is going to be an alternative to Rajdhani Express trains, they said.

READ | Republic Day 2023 Delhi metro timings: Know which stations are closed, parking details and more

Vande Bharat train

The Indian Railways plans to run 75 Vande Bharat trains by the end of this year and 400 over the next three years. The Vande Bharat Express is designed and manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Perambur in Chennai under the flagship Make-in-India initiative.