On a morning sombre and heavy with the news of a dastardly terrorist attack on CRPF jawans in Pulwama, the indigenously built engineless semi-superfast train, prepared for its inaugural run. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had promised superfast bullet trains five years ago was supposed to board the train. But on Friday morning, Modi stayed back on the platform to flag off the first Train18, or the Vande Bharat Express, 22436 UP, from New Delhi station for Varanasi.
Prime Minister Modi, who usually enjoys train rides, had to satisfy himself with a guided tour of the train and some briefings from his cabinet colleague and Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and senior railway board members. He diligently checked the various features on this train, went inside the driver's cabin to understand how the control worked and also inspected the toilets on the executive class coach of this train.
The 16-car train built by the Integrated Coach Factory, Chennai carried just the minister of railways, BJP parliamentarians, senior leaders from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, railway officials, media persons, support and catering staffers on the inaugural run. It would resume its commercial run from February 17 on the Delhi to Varanasi route. Normally, the journey covering 758-772 km takes 11.5 hours to complete. But the semi-superfast train is likely to cover the distance in under eight hours.
However, on the inaugural run the train would take about 10 hours, as a number of events have been planned around the train at Kanpur and Allahabad stations by BJP supporters. "This inauguration of Vande Bharat express shows our resilience and will power to not submit to any terrorists. We have learned this from the Mumbai attack," Piyush Goyal said before boarding the train.
About ten minutes after the train rolled off from New Delhi station, it clocked a speed of 130kmph. The manufacturers of the train claim that the speed could go upto 180kmph, though it achieved 160kmph during some of the initial trial runs of the train. The new coach design coupled with advanced braking and suspensions make for a comfortable ride.
The seats are bit stiff and non-reclinable which the Indian Railways officials said is a deliberate design to ensure minimum stress on backbones of travellers. The railways have made an all out attempt to compete with airline travel including LED lights inside the coach. The food served onboard on Friday was a vegetarian fare from breakfast to dinner. But the IRCTC staff assured that both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food would be made available.
“We are including continental menu for breakfast and will tie-up with five star hotel chains to provide food on this train," said S.N. Jha, IRCTC manager. The toilets in the train are vacuum powered bio-toilets and come equipped with sensor-triggered water taps.
During the inaugural run the train needed to clamp down on its emergency brakes as well, owing to over enthusiastic crowds spilling over on to the railway tracks to capture the train on their mobile cameras. Surprisingly, neither I nor any other passenger could feel any jolt from the sudden braking. In fact, most of the passengers were unaware that a major tragedy was narrowly averted.
Before major stations along the way, onlookers trooped down to the railway tracks armed with their mobile phones, hoping to catch a glimpse of the speed of this train. "Today I feel really proud that we are able to make a train like this," said Sanjay Srivastav, a journalist and Allahabad resident, after taking a tour of the new train.
However, one major disappointment one could feel is the lack of a data connection for your devices. So far, the train provides an internal Wi-Fi connection which allows travellers access only a few old movies and Hindi numbers from the fifties and sixties from the train's onboard infotainment server. Pretty lame and outdated content to be shown on a modern train like this.
“We are still fine tuning a lot of things in this train. The prime minister also made a few suggestions about the size of the washrooms and amenities available for the drivers,” said Rajesh Agarwal, member (rolling stock), Railway Board. This engineless train is powered by 32 electric motors with four of them housed below every alternate coach. “With better tracks we can take the speed closer to 250kmph,” he told THE WEEK.
According to information from railway ministry officials, the tickets for the first commercial run of this train on February 17 are already sold out. Single journey tickets between Delhi and Varanasi are priced at Rs 1,788 for the chair car and Rs 2,200 for the executive chair car. This fare is 30-40 per cent more than first class AC travel for the same distance.
The initial enthusiasm around the train shows that Indians would love to travel on rail with modern amenities, provided they are given that option. “By next year we will have 32 such trains. The priority is to have them running on the high-speed corridors being built on both the eastern and western coast,” said Goyal.
A ticket price check for short notice travel between Varanasi and New Delhi showed fares starting from Rs 1,400. Whether this semi-superfast train can bring millennials back to its fold remains to be seen.