PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday flagged off country’s five semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express trains at Rani Kamalapati Railway Station in Bhopal for various routes across the country. He virtually inaugurated three Vande Bharat Express train for Ranchi-Patna-Ranchi, Dharwad-KSR Bengaluru-Dharwad and Goa (Madgaon)-Mumbai- Goa routes while the two trains will be running on Bhopal-Indore-Bhopal and Rani Kamalapati-Jabalpur-Rani Kamalapati stations. The two trains departed from Rani Kamalapati Railway Station together from two different platforms. Before inaugurating the trains, Prime Minister Modi tweeted from his official Twitter account, “These trains will be improving the connectivity in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Bihar and Jharkhand.” PM Modi congratulated the people for travelling in country’s semi-high speed train. He wished specially to the Madhya Pradesh denizens for getting two trains. He said that till now people in MP were travelling in Vande Bharat train on Delhi-Bhopal-Delhi route. He said that now Bhopal-Indore, Rani Kamalapati-Jabalpur travel will be easy for passengers. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP State President V D Sharma, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, MP Governor Mangubhai Patel, State Minister Vishwas Sarang was also present with the PM during inauguration.

 

All the senior railway officials of West Central Railway and Bhopal Railway were present on the occasion. Official running of both trains will be held from June 28 as per Railways schedule. Apart from main stations, the train took halt at Gadarwara, Shreedham, Obedullaganj, Sehore, Maksi, Sujalpur stations. Public representatives of several areas welcomed the train at various stations. In inaugural run, the train reached Jabalpur in 5:40 hours while in general days, the train will reaching Jabalpur in 3:48 hours. Booking for both trains was already started by railway. For travelling from Rani Kamalapati to Jabalpur, people will be charged Rs 1,055 in chair car and Rs 1,880 in executive chair. For travelling from Bhopal to Indore, one would have to pay Rs 1,600. Bhopal- Indore Vande Bharat Express train (20912) will be departing Bhopal at 7:25 pm and reaching Ujjain at 9:35 and Indore 190:30 hours.

 

The train will be covering distance from Indore to Bhopal in 3:05 hours and Rani Kamalapati to Jabalpur in 4:35 hours. Both trains will be running with 8-8 racks. According to rail ways schedule train no 20911-12 will be running on Indore- Bhopal-Indore route and 20173-74 will be running in Rani Kamalapati-Jabalpur-Rani Kamalapati route. There will be 8 AC chair car and 1 executive class in the train. Total 564 seats will be provided in the train. The train will be departing Indore at 6:30 am and arriving Bhopal at 9:35 am, while in return the train will be departing Bhopal station at 7:25 pm and arriving Indore 10:35 pm. Besides, the train will be departing Rani Kamalapati station at 6 am and arriving Jabalpur at 10:35 am while in return the train will be departing Jabalpur at 7 pm and arriving Rani Kamalapati at 11:35 pm. A coach of Vande Bharat Express is made of about Rs 5 crores. Equipped with LHB technology, lighting to safety related items are being called from countries like France and Japan in its rack. This is complete air conditioned train with wi-fi facility.

 

There is 32 inch screen in all coaches giving information to the passengers. This is one of the premium train of country. The train has self-propelled engine and automatic door. Passengers would get charging point, 32 inch TV screen for entertainment, Braille on seat handle, Divyang friendly bio toilet, intelligence breaking system, safety provisions, etc. At present there are 18 Vande Bharat Express trains running across the country. First Vande Bharat was flagged off on New Delhi-Varanasi-New Delhi route. After that train was run on New Delhi-Shree Vaishno Mata Devi Katra route and then last year train was inaugurated on Gandhi Nagar-Mumbai route. ……………………