Nine new Vande Bharat trains will be flagged off across the country on Sunday, September 24, following a virtual inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 12.30 pm. The nine trains will ply across the 11 states of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Gujarat.
The new trains will travel through three religious places, namely, Puri, Madurai, and Tirupati.
The Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram Vande Bharat Express to be flagged off on Sunday will be Kerala’s second Vande Bharat train. The new train has been granted a stop at the Tirur station in Malappuram district. According to reports, during the inaugural run of the train, receptions have been arranged for it at the stations in Payyanur, Kannur, Thalassery, Kozhikode, Tirur, Shoranur Junction, Thrissur, Ernakulam Jn, Alappuzha, Kayamkulam Jn, Kollam Jn, and Thiruvananthapuram Central.
On Saturday, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw released a video of a Vande Bharat train with broad stripes of orange and black on its body, with the caption, “Vande Bharat in new shades, soon in Kerala.”
A press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on Saturday said that the new Vande Bharat trains will be the fastest along the routes of their operation. The new trains are expected to reduce travel time by half an hour to three hours on some routes.
The PMO said that as compared to the current fastest train along the routes Rourkela- Bhubaneswar-Puri and Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram, the new Vande Bharat Express will be faster by about 3 hours. On the Hyderabad-Bengaluru route, it will be faster by more than 2.5 hours, while on the Tirunelveli-Madurai-Chennai route, the train will help save more than 2 hours.
The Ranchi-Howrah, Patna-Howrah, and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad routes will see a reduction of about 1 hour in travel time on the new Vande Bharat express, while the journey will be half hour shorter on the Udaipur-Jaipur route.
The new trains will be flagged off along the following routes:
Udaipur - Jaipur
Tirunelveli - Madurai - Chennai
Hyderabad - Bengaluru
Vijayawada - Chennai (via Renigunta)
Patna - Howrah
Kasaragod - Thiruvananthapuram
Rourkela - Bhubaneswar - Puri
Ranchi - Howrah
Jamnagar - Ahmedabad