New Delhi, January 1 (IANS). Indian Railways is going to give a big gift to the passengers on New Year. Soon Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the country’s first Vande Bharat sleeper train. This modern train will run between Howrah (Kolkata) in West Bengal and Guwahati in Assam.
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav told in the press conference on Thursday that the fare of Guwahati-Howrah Vande Bharat Sleeper train will be much cheaper than air travel. While the air fare on this route usually ranges from Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000, in Vande Bharat Sleeper the fare for third AC including meals is around Rs 2,300, second AC around Rs 3,000 and first AC around Rs 3,600. These rates have been decided especially keeping the middle class in mind.
The Railway Minister said that the chair car of Vande Bharat Express has won the trust of passengers across the country and now demand for Vande Bharat trains is coming from every state. He said that with the same level of comfort, safety and modern standards, Vande Bharat Sleeper Train will now mark a new beginning in comfortable night travel.
According to Ashwini Vaishnav, this service can be launched in the next 15 to 20 days, possibly around January 18 or 19. A request has been made to the Prime Minister in this regard and the formal date will be announced soon. The first trainset of Vande Bharat Sleeper is completely ready and after successful trials, preparations have been completed to launch it for the passengers.
The first Vande Bharat sleeper train will have a total of 16 coaches. These will include 11 AC three-tier, 4 AC two-tier and 1 AC first class coach. 823 passengers will be able to travel at a time in this train. This route will provide better rail connectivity to North-East India with other parts of the country.
The design speed of Vande Bharat Sleeper train has been kept at 180 km per hour. Recently its high-speed trials were successfully completed on the Kota-Nagda section. The train achieved a speed of 180 kmph during testing. The special thing was that in the ‘water test’, the glasses filled with water remained stable even at such high speed, which proved the excellent stability and advanced technology of the train.
The Railway Minister said that 8 more Vande Bharat sleeper trains will be started in the next six months. In this way, by the end of the year 2026, their number will become 12. In future, Indian Railways is planning to run more than 200 Vande Bharat Sleeper trains across the country, which will completely change the face of long distance rail travel.
–IANS
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