Indian Railways floats tender for 58 Vande Bharat Trains
Indian Railways has floated a tender for 58 Vande Bharat train sets, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 15 announcement.
Highlights
- Tender was floated in a bid to roll out 75 such trains during 75 weeks of “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”.
- Currently, two Vande Bharat trains are in operation:
- Delhi to Katra and
- Delhi to Varanasi.
- As per the tender, 102 Vande Bharat trains will be delivered to the Railways by March 2024. Out of 102, 75 will be available by August 15, 2022.
- New coaches will be manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai, Modern Coach Factory (MCF) in Rae Bareilly and Rail Coach Factory (RCF) in Kapurthala.
- ICF will manufacture 30 rakes, while MCF & RCF will manufacture 14 rakes each.
About Vande Bharat Express
This Indian semi-high-speed, intercity, EMU train, also known as Train 18, was designed and manufactured by Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Perambur, Chennai. It was manufacture under the Make in India initiative, in 18 months. The unit cost of the first rake was about RS 1 billion. As this price, it is estimated to be 40% cheaper as compared to a similar train imported from Europe. Train 18 was launched on February 15, 2019. It was named ‘Vande Bharat Express’ on January 27, 2019.
Features of Train 18
The train is capable of running at a maximum speed of 200 km/h. However, the tracks on which it operates are not capable of supporting such high speeds. As a result, train is operated at a maximum speed of 130 km/h. It was tested at a speed of 180 km/h. This makes it the fastest train to run in India.
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Month: Current Affairs - August, 2021