In a first for India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag-off 9 Vande Bharat Express, India's fastest train on September 24, 2023. The semi-high speed train is running on 25 routes currently and with the inauguration, the total routes will reach 34. Every single one of these semi-high speed trains are inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, revealing the importance of these modern and fast trains for the current BJP regime. Among these 9 trains will be the first Saffron coloured Vande Bharat Express as well.
Poll-Bound Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will get the maximum trains, while South India is expected to get 2 Vande Bharat trains, including the orange-grey new Vande Bharat Express. The 9 routes will be inaugurated after a dry spell of two months ever since the last Vande Bharat train was flagged off by PM Modi in July 2023.
Route 1: Indore - Jaipur Vande Bharat Express
Route 2: Jaipur-Udaipur Vande Bharat Express
Route 3: Puri - Rourkela Vande Bharat Express
Route 4: Patna-Howrah Vande Bharat Express
Route 5: Jaipur-Chandigarh Vande Bharat Express
Route 6: Chennai- Tirunelveli Vande Bharat Express
Route 7: Kasaragod - Trivandrum Vande Bharat Express
Route 8: Hyderabad - Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express
Route 9: Jamnagar - Ahmedabad Vande Bharat Express
As of now, 25 Vande Bharat Express trains are running across India, covering 50 routes, 25 each up and down. Four of these are in the Northern Zone, 3 in Southern and Central Zones, 2 in Western, West Central and North Western Railway Zones and 1 in South East Central, Eastern, East Coast, South Central, South Eastern, Northeast Frontier, East Central, South Western and North Eastern Railway.
The project to manufacture indigenous semi-high-speed train sets began in mid-2017, and within 18 months, the ICF Chennai completed Train-18. India's first semi-high-speed train was renamed Vande Bharat Express in January 2019 to emphasize its made-in-India status. The train achieved a maximum speed of 180 kmph on the Kota-Sawai Madhopur section.
The upcoming Vande Bharat Express trains will get a new Orange-Dark Grey paint scheme as against the current generation of semi-high speed trains with white-blue livery. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that this Saffron colour is inspired by the 'Tricolour'. The colour scheme has a larger spread on the train, giving it a more prominent appeal as compared to the current Vande Bharat Express trains, where a blue strip runs at the side of the train.
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