Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Wednesday said the issues of Vande Bharat sleeper train, which is to be manufactured by an Indo-Russia joint venture (JV), has been resolved and therefore, there will be no change in the original design agreed upon. Vaishnaw said that as per the contract, the trains will not have pantry cars and each coach will have a total of three toilets, and so there will be no change in cost. He also said that Russian rolling stock manufacturer Transmashholding (TMH), which has major shareholding in the joint venture, has agreed to produce 24 coach trains in place of 16 coaches as per the contract. For VB sleeper train sets, Railways signed a contract with the Indo-Russia joint venture Kinet Railway Solutions Ltd on September 27, 2023. It is an Indo-Russian special purpose vehicle formed by consortium of TMH, Locomotive Electronic Systems — a close partner of TMH and a Russian supplier — and RVNL. As per the contract, Kinet Railway Solutions Ltd will supply a total of 1,920 VB sleeper coaches to the Railways and will offer maintenance services for 35 years. However, while the manufacturing was to begin at Marathwada Rail Coach Factory (MRCF) in Latur, the Railways, in May last year, demanded 4 lavatory rooms per car, one pantry car in each train, less pantry space per train and luggage zones in each end car of each train. In the earlier design, there were 3 toilets per car, no pantry car and, instead, a pantry area in each car, and no luggage zones. “The decision has been taken to run these Vande Bharat sleeper trains during overnight journeys. This means the trains will take 8 to 12 hours in night to complete the journey. In such a case, a pantry car would not be required. Given the night journey, 3 lavatories will be sufficient. The third demand was for a 24-coach train set, which they have accepted. Now the project is back on track,” said a senior Railways official. TMH has not responded to the development.
