INDIAN RAILWAYS UPDATE: Chasing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of running 75 Vande Bharat trains in 75 weeks, the third such train will leave the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai on August 12 for trials, sources said on Tuesday. The train is likely to be run on a specific route in south India from November.
Railway sources said the operations of the semi-high speed (160-200 kilometres per hour) Vande Bharat trial will be started before August 15. While it is yet to be confirmed, Modi could flag off the train from Chennai.
The trial of the train will be conducted from Kota in Rajasthan to Nagda section of Madhya Pradesh. The trial speed of the train will be 100 to 180 kmph. After the success of two-three trials, the new Vande Bharat train will be fit to run commercially. The railways claims that 75 Vande Bharat trains will start running on the tracks by August 15, 2023, in line with Modi’s announcement.
The ICF has the capacity to manufacture six to seven Vande Bharat rakes (trains) every month and attempts are on to scale this number to 10. Apart from this, the Vande Bharat trains will also be manufactured at the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala and the Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareli.
In the new Vande Bharat train, the safety and convenience features for passengers have been improved. The biggest safety addition in the upgraded Vande Bharat trains will be the support of the Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) or Kavach to prevent signal passing at danger (SPAD) cases and unsafe situations arising due to overspeeding and train collisions in station areas. The other safety features include fire detection alarms in coaches and a fire detection suppression system in cubicles and toilets.
Passengers will also have access to more emergency push buttons and emergency talk-back units through which they can speak to the loco pilot. The trains will also have a centralised coach monitoring system through which all electrical components and climate control will be monitored on a real-time basis by a designated person.
Following cases of cattle run over causing serious damage to the train exteriors, the new trains will have strengthened fibre reinforced plastic, made from materials used in aircraft. After getting the customer feedback, the ICF has redesigned the train seats by replacing the sliding reclining seats to aircraft-like reclining seats.
Currently, two Vande Bharat trains are operational, running between Delhi and Katra and Delhi and Varanasi.
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