6th Vande Bharat Express launched on 412 km Bilaspur-Nagpur Route of Indian Railways

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): Prime Minister, Narendra Modi flagged off the Country's 6th Semi High Speed Vande Bharat Express Train connecting Nagpur and Bilaspur from platform number 1 of the Nagpur Railway Station today.

The Prime Minister inspected the train coaches of the Vande Bharat Express and took stock of the onboard facilities. He inspected the control centre of the locomotive engine of Vande Bharat Express and also took stock of the development plans of the Nagpur and Ajni Railway Stations. The travel time from Nagpur to Bilaspur (412 km) will be reduced to 5 hours 30 mins from 7-8 hours. This train will run six days a week with stopagge at Raipur, Durg and Gondia. This train will be operated by Southeast Central Railways (SECR) Division of Indian Railways.

This train will leave Bilaspur at around 6.45am and reach Nagpur at around 12.15pm. Similarly, the train will leave Nagpur at 2pm to reach Bilaspur at 7.35pm. Currently superfast trains take around seven hours to reach Nagpur. 

The seventh Vande Bharat Express train is likely to be launched between Secunderabad and Vijayawada in 2023. This will be the first indigenously-built semi high-speed rail in South Central Railway (SCR) and second such train in south India.

The first Vande Bharat train of series 2.0 was first launched on the Mumbai- Ahmedabad route in October this year. The Ministry of Railways aims to inaugurate 75 Vande Bharat trains by August next year.

All the coaches of the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat train are equipped with automatic doors, GPS-based audio-visual passenger information system, onboard hotspot Wi-Fi for entertainment purposes, and comfortable seats.

However, the first Vande Bharat Express train of series 1.0 was flagged off on the New Delhi- Kanpur- Allahabad-Varanasi route on February 15, 2019 and second train was launched on New Delhi - Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Route on 3rd October 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.