Vande Bharat Express Trains To Replace Shatabdi And Jan Shatabdi Trains On 27 Routes

Aiming at reducing the travel time between two cities, the Indian Railways has identified Delhi-Lucknow, Delhi-Amritsar and Puri-Howrah among 27 routes in the first phase for running the indigenously manufactured semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains replacing Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi services.

Shatabdi trains running on Delhi-Bhopal and Delhi-Chandigarh routes are also to be replaced by Vande Bharat Express as per the plan being worked out ahead of the mass production of these next generation trains.

While the railways has awarded the contract for manufacturing of 44 Vande Bharat trains at ICF, tendering process is underway for making 58 more such train-sets.

Since these 44 Vande Bharat trains are having seating arrangement only, services of Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi and Intercity Express are going to be replaced with the train-sets.

Besides 400 energy efficient light weight Vande Bharat trains will be made in the next three years out of which tenders would be floated shortly for 100 train-sets.

There is also a plan to manufacture Vande Bharat trains with sleeper coaches. Once the train is equipped with sleeper coaches, it is going to replace Rajdhani and Duronto trains.

However, the sources added, a final decision on the Vande Bharat routes would be taken shortly keeping various factors into account.

Currently, the popular train is running on two routes from Delhi connecting Varanasi and Katra. There is a huge demand for Vande Bharat trains from almost every zone.

The semi-high speed Vande Bharat service is expected to reduce travel time as the train can run at a maximum speed of 180 kmph.

The first prototype of Vande Bharat train is expected to be rolled out in early May this year.