The first prototype Vande Bharat sleeper coaches train. File
| Photo Credit: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B
The Vande Bharat sleeper train has achieved a peak speed of 180 kilometres per hour following multiple trials in the last three days. On Thursday, during a 30-km long run between Kota and Laban in Bundi district of Rajasthan, the train reached a peak speed of 180 km per hour.
“The trials will continue till this month end before the facility is made available to the rail commuters,” the Ministry of Railways said in a statement.
Sharing a video of a successful trial run in Kota Division, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw mentioned about the train speed in his post on social media platform X.
The video shows a nearly full to brim glass of water adjacent to a mobile on a plain surface inside a Vande Bharat sleeper train. The water level remains static in the video as the moving train achieves near constant peak speed of 180 km per hour.
The post came after three days of successful trials, which concluded on January 2, in which a Vande Bharat sleeper train in its loaded condition touched the peak speed.
A day earlier on January 1, the sleeper train went through a 40-km long trial run between Rohal Khurd to Kota and touched the peak speed of 180 km per hour. On the same day, peaks of 170 km/hr and 160 km/hr were achieved on Kota-Nagda and Rohal Khurd-Chau Mahla sections. “These trials will continue for the month of January under the supervision of RDSO, Lucknow,” railway officials said, referring to the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO).
“Once these trials are over, the train will be evaluated by the Railway Safety Commissioner at the maximum speed. Only after passing the final stage, Vande Bharat trains will be officially certified and handed over to Indian Railways for induction and regular service,” they added.
These Vande Bharat sleeper trains are designed with features like automatic doors, ultra comfortable berths, on-board WiFi and an aircraft-like design. Currently, the 136 Vande Bharat trains running across the country on the medium and short distances are chair car trains meant for day-long journeys.
Officials said the real challenge for the Railways was to add berths and test the trains for full passenger and luggage load conditions in order to convert them into Vande Bharat sleeper coaches while achieving the peak speed of 180 km/hour.
With these successful trials, rail commuters can hope for comfortable travel experience in long-distance travel like Kashmir to Kanniyakumari, Delhi to Mumbai, Howrah to Chennai and many other routes also. “They will benefit as travel time will come down considerably. The current average speed of Mumbai-Delhi long-distance travel is 90 km/hr with maximum permissible speed of 140 km/h for Tejas Rajdhani Express, which is the fastest among all Rajdhani train services in India,” officials said.
Published – January 03, 2025 11:22 pm IST