NEW DELHI:
Indian Railways
will start the trial run of short distance
Vande Metro trains
in July and the sleeper version of
Vande Bharat
next month. While the Vande Metro trains will ply on routes covering 100-250 kms, the
Vande Bharat Sleeper trains
will be deployed on routes covering over 1,000 km.
According to officials, the Vande Metro trains would connect around 124 cities and some of the identified routes include Lucknow-Kanpur, Agra-Mathura, Delhi-Rewari, Bhubaneswar-Balasore and Tirupati-Chennai.
Running on existing railway tracks, these AC trains will cater to the needs of passengers between large urban centres and satellite towns and will carry more passengers in the unreserved category.
An official said, “These trains are oriented towards high acceleration with frequent stoppages. They will have 12 coaches each and large automatic doors with side seats. There will be more space for passengers to stand. If there is a requirement to carry more passengers, these trains can have 16 coaches as well.”
On the roadmap to modernise the trains (rolling stock), the official said the national transporter is targeting to run 50 push-pull variant Amrit Bharat trains in the current fiscal, which will cater to the demand of long distance passengers at a very affordable price. The first such train was operated between Delhi and Ayodhya. These trains have one engine each in the front and back.
The official added that in the near future, the Amrit Bharat trains will have a cone shaped nose and will appear similar to European trains. These will roll out by 2026. Railways has planned to deploy around 400 such trains in the near future.
