Vande Bharat Express: Will India’s first indigenous engine-less train deliver?
The Indian Railway ministry has faced several ups and downs throughout the tenure of the incumbent NDA government, the major one being the resignations of erstwhile Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu after subsequent train derailments. Even after Piyush Goyal replaced him in the coveted position, there have been similar mishaps characterized by neglect and ignorance of the railway staff. Incidents such as the Amritsar Train Tragedy (where more than 60 people died in a train accident in Amritsar district of Punjab on October 19, 2018) have raised questions about the efficient functioning of the world’s largest employer, with the Indian Express reporting,
Top sources in the Railways said preliminary reports suggested that the Amritsar mishap could have been averted or, at least the number of casualties could have been fewer, had local railway officials responded to the obstruction created by the presence of a huge crowd.
Amid the unfortunate misses, the railways seem to have finally delivered a hit in the form of the soon to be launched Train 18, or Vande Bharat Express, as it has been christened recently. Named so to acknowledge “its made-in-India status”, it is the fastest indigenous train in India that will ply from New Delhi to Varanasi. With a minimal amount of research, you can discover the various attractive features of the train.
As explained by NDTV,
Train 18 is an all air-conditioned chair car train with 16 coaches. It has a modern look with continuous windows on the exterior and its seating capacity is 1,128. The coach doors open only when the train is at zero kmph and the train starts only when all the coach doors are properly closed. Train 18 also has features like automatic doors with retractable footsteps, onboard Wi-Fi and infotainment, GPS-based passenger information system etc.
However, what is most interesting about how the train was developed is that in a departure from the way Indian government departments are known to work, the total cost of the train was around Rs 97 crore, Rs 3 crore less than the 100 crore cost that was initially approved. It is also considerably lesser than the manufacturing cost of similar trains worldwide.
Despite initial resistance from officials, who believed that the technology could be leased from the countries that already have engineless trains, Sudhanshu Mani, former general manager of Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai and the mastermind behind the engine-less train labored through and delivered a product that countries like Peru, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and some countries in the Middle East now want to import.
Some of the challenges included glitches that occurred during the trial runs, allegedly motivated by vested interests.
During the low speed trials of Train 18, a power disarray was noticed — technically called harmonics — which led to blowing up of fuses and activation of safety (systems) at (electricity) sub-stations and stalling of some locomotives in the section,
S. Mani, General Manager of Integral Coach Factory (ICF) that has manufactured the train, said. “Vested interests are trying to fail the train even before trials were completed,” he added.
It is perhaps also a commentary on the resistance of people towards change that miscreants pelted stones on a new Train 18 during its trial run in December 2018, barely a month after a similar incident. “A railway servant present in T-18 informed the escort party that a stone hit the window glass of coach no. 188320 of T-18,” a Northern Railway official said.
The train also courted controversy when Railway Minister Piyush Goyal posted a video of Vande Bharat Express with the text,
However, Twitter users pointed out that the video posted by the Railway Minister was a clipped portion of a YouTube video shot by train enthusiasts, which was then speeded up to twice its original speed, contributing to a number of similar gaffes made by him in the past.
Despite several challenges, the train, that touched a speed of 180 kmph during its test runs and is expected to cut travel time by 15% compared to the current Shatabdi Express, is reportedly set to be launched on February 15 by the Prime Minister. While questions do arise whether the train really needs false promotion; if it does manage to live up to the expectations, it could serve as a saving grace for the Indian Railways.
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