Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday, April 25, flagged off Kerala's first Vande Bharat train from Thiruvananthapuram railway station. The excitement of the state getting its first Vande Bharat train has been in the air for the past one week when it arrived here with much fanfare. Soon after the inauguration, the train is being run only for invitees. The first commercial service will start from Kasaragod on Wednesday and will reach here in 7 hours and 50 minutes. The first service from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod will begin on Thursday.
While the regular commercial service will have stops at Kollam, Kottayam, Thrissur, Shornur, Kozhikode and Kannur and terminating at Kasaragod, the inaugural special train flagged by PM Modi will stop at more stations. He arrived at Kochi on Monday evening, and reached the Thiruvananthapuram railway station this morning. After briefly interacting with a group of schoolchildren, who were given the opportunity to travel on the inaugural run, the PM got down and flagged off the train. The train has 16 coaches of which two are executive with 104 seats.
On its inaugural run, all the who's who in the state capital drawn from various sectors of the civil society were invited and included religious leaders, businessmen and technocrats who were spotted seated in the train since morning. Present along with the PM during the flagging off were Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, local MP-Shashi Tharoor among others.
On April 17, the first trial run was undertaken till Kannur and after that a furore was raised on why Kasaragod is being left out and soon numerous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress leaders approached the Centre and then it was extended till Kasaragod and then came cries of a stop at Shornur which was also granted.
However, the Union government kept the clearance for the Vande Bharat train a top secret, and no one knew about the clearance till the train started from Chennai early this month to Kochuveli station in the capital city.