Vande Bharat Express, the semi-high-speed train introduced by Indian Railways is getting popular day by day. Railways have now decided to run a smaller version of the Vande Bharat (VB) Express.
As of now, all the VB express introduced by IR comprised of 16 coaches (14 Chair Car + 2 Executive Chair Car). The Indian government has now decided to run VB express with 8 coaches.
While the 16-coach VB express is currently run between major cities (travel time up to 6/8 hours). The smaller version of the train can be run for shorter distances of travel time of up to 4/5 hours.
Running VB express with 8 coaches will help to increase the reachability of the same towards Tier 2/3 cities where the demand is not that high to fill the entire 16 coaches.
The smaller version of the VB express is getting ready on a pilot basis. According to sources, A prototype of the same is being made at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai.
It costs around 115 to 120 Crores to manufacture a 16-coach VB express. The cost will be reduced to nearly half (around 55-60 Crores) for 8 coach VB express train.
Vande Bharat Express, also known as Train-18 is a Semi-high-speed, Intercity, Electric Multiple Unit train operated by the Indian Railways. The train has been tested to operate at 180kmph.
Indian Railways introduced Vande Bharat Express between New Delhi and Varanasi on 15th February 2019. As of now, a total of 8 VB express trains are running across India.
South Western Railway (SWR) is rigorously working to introduce Vande Bharat Express between Bengaluru and Dharwad via Hubballi once Doubling and Electrification work gets completed.
An 8 coach version (or if possible, even a 12-coach version, if rolled out), can be used for Mysore-Chennai and Mumbai-Gandhinagar..