Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to flag off nine more Vande Bharat trains across the country, including two from within South Central Railway (SCR) – Kacheguda to Bengaluru and Vijayawada to Chennai, later this month virtually from Delhi on September 24.
These will be eight coach trains in the original blue colour with technical and design changes made as per the passengers feedback. The Vijaywada-Chennai Vande Bharat service will be having a halt at Renigunta unlike the existing trains which have a halt at Gudur. It means passengers will be having an extra service to to reach Tirupati now, informed railway sources on Thursday.
The train is likely to start in the morning in Vijayawada at 5.30 a.m. to reach Chennai at 12.10 p.m. and in the return journey, it will start at Chennai at 3.20 p.m. to reach Vijayawada by 10 p.m. cover the distance in less than seven hours.
The second Vande Bharat train from Kacheguda is expected to start at 5.30 a.m. in the morning and reach Yesvantpur at 2 p.m. In the return direction, it will start at 2.45 p.m. and reach Kacheguda at 11.15 p.m. Halts in SCR will be at Mahabubnagar, Kurnool City and Anantapur. The distance will get covered in 8.30 hours.
The other Vande Bharat trains scheduled to be commissioned are between: Kasaragod–Thiruvananthapuram, Ranchi–Howrah, Tirunelveli-Madurai–Chennai, Udaipur–Jaipur, Jamnagar–Ahmedabad, Rourkela-Bhubaneshwar-Puri and Patna–Howrah.
