Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to flag off nine new Vande Bharat trains on various routes on Sunday. These include two services on the South Central Railways (SCR), two in West Bengal, as well as one each in Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, among others.
Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will also participate in the inauguration program, an official statement said.
With the onset of the festival season, the various trains are expected to offer a smooth travel experience to commuters, providing a faster and convenient travel option. As per the officials, the Kacheguda-Yesvantpur train service between Bengaluru and Hyderabad will be the fastest train between the two cities with least journey time. Likewise, the Vijayawada – MGR Chennai Central route train will be the first and fastest on this route, the statement added.
Meanwhile, the Patna-Howrah and Ranchi-Howrah routes will have 25 added features, the train will cover a distance of 535 km in approximately 6 hours and 30 minutes, news agency ANI reported.
Here’s the full list of nine new Vande Bharat train services to be launched:
| Serial Number | Route |
| 1 | Kasaragod – Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) |
| 2 | Jaipur – Udaipur (Rajasthan) |
| 3 | Vijayawada – Chennai (Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) |
| 4 | Tirunelveli – Chennai (Tamil Nadu) |
| 5 | Jamnagar – Ahmedabad (Gujarat) |
| 6 | Ranchi – Howrah (Jharkhand and West Bengal) |
| 7 | Secunderabad (Kacheguda) – Bengaluru (Yesvantpur) (Telangana and Karanataka) |
| 8 | Rourkela – Puri (Odisha) |
| 9 | Patna – Howrah (Bihar and West Bengal) |
Vande Bharat Express trains – part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative — were launched in 2019. Modi flagged off the first train between Delhi and Varanasi on February 15 that year. These India’s first indigenous ‘semi high speed’ trains are manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
The authorities are also in preparation to launch the sleeper version and Vande Metro variation of the service in 2024.
