Vande Bharat Express to soon achieve 220 kmph speed, Indian Railways working on new sleeper trains

Once operational, the new sleeper Vande Bharat Express will replace the Delhi-Meerut RRTS with 180 kmph top speed as the fastest train in India.

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The Indian Railways is working on the sleeper version of the Vande Bharat Express train, that can touch a speed of 220 kmph, 40 kmph more than that of the chair car version of the current generation of Vande Bharat trains. The semi-high speed trains which have become a centre of attraction among railway passengers, will be designed to travel at a speed of 220 km per hour, officials said. These trains will be made using aluminum, instead of steel, as in the Vande Bharat 2.0, which will reduce the weight of the train, hence increasing the speed.

While the top speed of the sleeper version of Vande Bharat trains will be 220 kmph, making them the fastest trains in India, it will run at a speed of 200 km per hour on the tracks, they said. This also means, once on tracks, the new sleeper Vande Bharat trains will replace Delhi-Meerut RRTS trains as the fastest train in India. The RRTS has a top speed of 180 kmph as well.

The current gen Vande Bharat Express has a top speed of 180 kmph, but only does 130 kmph due to safety constraints. The chair car Vande Bharat Express trains will replace the Shatabdi Express in a phased manner, while the sleeper version is going to be an alternative to Rajdhani Express trains, they said.

The Railways has issued a tender for 400 Vande Bharat trains and the work will be approved by the end of this month. Some of the initial lot of such trains could also be sleeper versions of the indigenously made trains, according to officials. Four major domestic and foreign companies have come forward for the production.

According to the plan, the first 200 Vande Bharat trains will have the seating arrangement on the lines of Shatabdi Express and will be designed to travel at a speed of 180 km per hour. These trains will be made of steel, officials said.

In the second phase, 200 Vande Bharat trains will be sleepers and they will be made of aluminium. "The second version of the sleeper Vande Bharat trains will run at a maximum speed of 200 km per hour. For this, the tracks of Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata railways are being repaired, signal system, bridges are being fixed, and fencing work is going on," an official said.

"Apart from this, anti-collision technical armour is being installed on both the railway routes at a cost of Rs 1,800 crore," the official said. Four hundred trains will be produced at ICF at Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Latur Rail Factory in Maharashtra and Sonepat in Haryana in the next two years, officials said.

With PTI inputs