Train 18 gets a name! India’s fastest engine-less train, which was codenamed Train 18 after the year it was manufactured in, has finally been given a name by Indian Railways. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has announced that the soon to be flagged of Train 18 will be called “Vande Bharat Express”. Goyal called Train 18 a “vandaniya” step by Indian Railways towards the achievement of Modi government’s “New India” vision. Train 18, or the Vande Bharat Express, has been made by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) Chennai under the ‘Make in India’ initiative. While its maximum operational speed will be 160 kmph, the self-propelled state-of-the-art train set hit the 180 kmph speed mark during its trials, making it the fastest train on the Indian Railways network.
Reacting to the news, Sudhanshu Mani, former ICF GM who is fondly called as “Train 18 man” said, “The first Train 18 service, to be run between Delhi and Varanasi, has been named Vande Bharat Express and it’s a befitting name.” “Looking at the innovative hard work done by ICF in this project, themselves and in association with Indian partners, it had to be named in a way that paid a tribute to the nation. Let us not forget that this train has been conceptualised and designed entirely in India and the project, unlike other rolling stock projects in the past, shunned any foreign intervention and the name of the train seems to salute this effort,” Mani told Financial Express Online. “Train 18 is the name given to the 16 coach indigenous train set by me in consultation with the team at ICF and to my mind, this name will live forever. The generic name Train 18 today represents the spirit of new India,” he added.
The Vande Bharat Express was recently granted final clearance by EIG (Electrical Inspector to the Government) and the Commission of Railway Safety. It is expected to be flagged off in the next few days by PM Narendra Modi on the Delhi-Varanasi route. The engine-less Vande Bharat Express is expected to take a total of 8 hours between Delhi and Varanasi, a duration that will come down as railway infrastructure on the route is upgraded. While the schedule of the new Train 18 or Vande Bharat Express is yet to be released, the train is likely to leave Delhi at 6:30 AM to reach Varanasi at 2:30 PM and on the return journey depart at 3:30 PM to arrive in Delhi at 11:30 PM.
Vande Bharat Express is a 16-coach all air-conditioned train set which boasts of several new features such as; automatic entry/exit doors with sliding footsteps, European-style comfortable seats, fully sealed gangways for easy movement, modular bio-toilets, rotating seats in the Executive class, car-style forward reclining feature for better leg-room for fellow passengers, aircraft-like diffused LED lighting etc. The new Vande Bharat Express, or Train 18, is also disabled-friendly with easy entry/exit feature for wheelchairs, parking spaces for wheelchairs and a disabled friendly-toilet.
Vande Bharat Express makes use of regenerative braking, making it energy efficient. Its underslung distributed equipment results in faster acceleration and deceleration, a fact that helps reduce the journey time by 15-20%. Manufactured at a cost of Rs 97 crore, the Vande Bharat Express has already generated export interest with its world-class features and competitive cost of manufacturing.
Being called the Shatabdi-killer, Train 18 or Vande Bharat Express, will replace the Shatabdi Express trains on the Indian Railways network, 30 years after the latter were first introduced. It is also the first major modern technology to hit rail tracks after the Rajdhani Express, says Indian Railways.
