AROUND SIX hours from Mumbai to Goa, Ranchi to Patna, Guwahati to New Jalpaiguri, and around four hours from Delhi to Dehradun — these are some of the routes on which the Vande Bharat Express will run in the coming days as the signature offering from Indian Railways aims to touch all states. So far, the 16-coach semi-high-speed trainsets have touched states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana among others along its routes. Railways is exploring options on all the routes to decrease the journey time to the extent possible, by eliminating speed restrictions and other measures. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will inaugurate the Howrah-Puri Vande Bharat Express, the first for Odisha and the trainset’s 17th edition. Journeys taking between four and eight hours will have the standard Vande Bharats. Shorter routes taking less than three-four hours will have the upcoming “mini” version, called the Vande Metros, while routes that take over eight hours will have the Sleeper versions of the trainset, officials said. Railways is already racing against time to roll out the Vande Bharats on various routes connecting 75 cities and towns across India by August 15, 2023, marking 75 years of Independence. Apart from this, the government last year set an ambitious plan of rolling out 400 Vande Bharats in the next three years. Russia's TMH in a joint venture with Railway PSU Rail Vikas Nigam Limited bagged the contract to make 120 Vande Bharats in Sleeper versions for longer distances, as opposed to the chair cars being rolled out so far; while a BHEL-led consortium was given the order to make 80 of the same type. The Vande Bharat between Howrah and Puri, like the ones on other routes, is a daytime train. Starting a little after 6 am, it will reach Puri around 12.30. In the return journey, the train will leave Puri around 1 pm. “Pilgrims to the Jagannath temple can comfortably reach by noon, check into their hotel well in time,” said a senior railway official. The Vande Bharats are capable of running at a speed of 160 kmph. Owing to distributed power across the 160 “self-propelled” coaches, the train can accelerate as well as decelerate faster than conventional trains. That's why in Indian conditions, which have frequent stoppages to connect more places per route, the trainset translates into shorter journey times than conventional coaches.
