The Indian Railways is gearing up to roll out at least 10 new Vande Bharat indigenous semi-high speed trains, linking around 40 cities, by August next year to commemorate 75 years of India’s Independence. The Indian Express has reported that Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has reviewed the project and directed that the rollout plan be advanced to connect at least 40 cities with the Vande Bharat trains by August 2022. Vande Bharat is the name given to India’s own semi-high speed train set, a collection of 16 coaches, self-propelled and do not require an engine to drag them.
Medha Servo Drives Ltd secured the contract to supply the electrical systems for 44 Vande Bharat trains in January this year. The Hyderabad-based engineering firm has now been told to advance its production plan so that at least two prototypes can be rolled out by March next year following all trials.
There is a contract condition that along with all the trials and testing that are needed to give nod to a Vande Bharat, the prototype train set that comes out of its anchor should also complete 1 lakh kilometre of commercial run with passengers before the following lot can be placed for production. Under this, the Vande Bharat trains could take months to hit the tracks commercially. Officials estimate that if all three production units are put to use, Indian Railways can manufacture around six to seven Vande Bharat train sets every month.
The idea of the new plan is to get maximum train sets rolled out by 2024 by utilising Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, Modern Coach Factory in Raebareli and Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala.