NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways will roll out 75 Vande Bharat trains only with chair cars and the rest would have sleeper facilities to facilitate overnight journeys. The Railway Board has directed the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai to restrict the manufacturing of Chair Car versions to 75 rakes.
Currently, the railway-owned factory has an order for manufacturing 117 Vande Bharat trains out of which six have been rolled out.
In a communication to the ICF, the Railway Board has said, “Against the present orders, only 75 Vande-Bharat rakes to be manufactured as Chair Car version and balance rakes to be manufactured as Sleeper Version.”
The seventh Vande Bharat train is scheduled for the flag off on December 30 from Howrah. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi will flag off the train, which will be the first in eastern India.
Sources said as per the plan, all Vande Bharat trains with seating arrangement are likely to run on routes served by Shatabdi trains and the sleeper versions are expected to run on Rajdhani routes including Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes. They added that there is more demand for long route Vande Bharat trains and hence the Railway Board has advised the ICF to take necessary action to manufacture Sleeper rakes on priority.
Union finance Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech had announced manufacturing of 400 Vande Bharat trains and she is expected to announce another 300-400 more Vande Bharat trains taking the total number of such trains to nearly 1,000.