Railways struggles to meet Vande Bharat number, speed targets

As opposed to its billed top speed of 160 kmph, the ones that have been rolled out are crawling at an average speed of as low as 64 kmph. This is the average speed of the new, eight-coach Delhi-Dehradun Vande Bharat whose inaugural run will be flagged off from Dehradun by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Next week, another eight-coach rake will be flagged off between Guwahati and New Jalpaiguri, bringing the Northeast into the Vande Bharat route map.

Since 2021, finalisation of specifications, tender conditions, industry consultations as well as its own housekeeping issues held up the production of the trainsets, even though the first one was launched in February 2019.

The pace of production will pick up, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at Express Adda programme last week. “Soon we will be able to roll out a train every three days,” he said.

The average speed of each of the 18 trains shows that the tracks with their myriad technical speed restrictions contain the semi-high-speed trainsets to actual speed similar to existing superfast trains like the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis. They have been mostly allowed to run at top speed of 130 kmph. “Removal of permanent speed restrictions (on the tracks) is a continuous process in which the DRMs and GMs are engaged,” a Railway spokesman said on Wednesday.