Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate two new Vande Bharat Express trains from Mumbai on Friday. With these two trains, Maharashtra will now have four Vande Bharats – two interstate and two intrastate – which will help boost connectivity.
Many firsts will be covered with the inauguration of these two trains: Maharashtra will be the first state to have intrastate Vande Bharats; they will be crossing the ghat sections of Karjat-Lonavala and Kasara-Igatpuri; and this is the first time that two of these trains are being inaugurated at the same time.
News18 got access inside the new Vande Bharat trains that will be launched on Friday. Prime Minister Modi will flag off the trains from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai around 3 pm. One of these semi-high speed trains will run between Mumbai and Solapur, while the other will be between Mumbai and Sainagar Shirdi.
“This will be an important step towards fulfilling the prime minister’s vision of building better, efficient and passenger-friendly transport infrastructure for ‘New India’,” the railway ministry said.
First, PM Modi will inaugurate the Mumbai-Solapur train, which will be the ninth Vande Bharat in the country. “The new world-class train will improve connectivity between Mumbai and Solapur, and will also facilitate travel to important pilgrimage centres like Siddheshwar in Solapur, Akkalkot, Tuljapur, Pandharpur near Solapur and Alandi near Pune,” the ministry said.
It will enhance connectivity between CSMT and Solapur – or the commercial capital to the city of textiles and hutatmas in Maharashtra. The 22225/22226 Mumbai-Solapur-Mumbai Vande Bharat will have stops at Dadar, Kalyan, Kurduwadi and Pune, apart from CSMT and Solapur. The commercial run of this train will start from Saturday.
“The existing superfast train takes seven hours and 55 minutes whereas Vande Bharat will take six hours and 30 minutes, saving one-and-a-half hours each way,” an official told News18.
What is interesting about this train is that it does not require a banker or a pulling loco. During the trial, it climbed the Bhor Ghat or the Khandala-Lonavala Ghat section without a pulling loco.
The country’s tenth Vande Bharat, the Mumbai-Sainagar Shirdi train, will also be inaugurated on the same day. Apart from enhancing connectivity between CSMT and Sainagar Shirdi, this train will also improve connectivity of important pilgrimage centres like Nashik, Trimbakeshwar, Sainagar Shirdi, Shani Shingnapur.
The 22223/22224 Mumbai-Sainagar Shirdi-Mumbai Vande Bharat will have stops at Dadar, Thane and Nashik Road, apart from CSMT and Sainagar Shirdi. The train will cover the distance in 5 hours and 25 minutes, and will start its commercial run from Sunday. This train managed to climb the steep Thal Ghat or the Kasara Ghat without a banker engine.
Thal and Bhor are the steepest ghats in India and are considered to be the toughest railway ghat sections, as for every 37-metre run, there is a rise of one metre. All the trains passing through these sections need an additional pushing locomotive behind from the Mumbai side to prevent them from rolling back.
Maharashtra already has two operational Vande Bharat trains – one between Mumbai Central and Gandhinagar and another between Bilaspur and Nagpur.
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