Railways to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with more coaches on 7 routes amid rising demand
New Delhi (PTI): The Railway Board has decided to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with more coaches on seven operational routes after considering the high occupancy of passengers, according to officials.
These seven routes are Mangaluru Central-Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad–Tirupati, Chennai Egmore–Tirunelveli, Madurai–Bengaluru Cantt, Deoghar–Varanasi, Howrah– Rourkela and Indore–Nagpur.
The released trains will also be introduced on some other new routes.
The officials said that at present four 8 coaches (also called cars) and three 16 coaches Vande Bharat trains are operational on these routes.
“The 16-car train will be upgraded to 20-car and those having 8-car will be increased to 16-car,” Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information and Publicity, Railway Board, said.
“On the basis of occupancy for Financial Year 2025-26 (up to 31.07.2025) and feasibility for augmentation, a tentative augmentation of three 16-car Vande Bharat train services with 20-car and four 8-Car Vande Bharat train with 16-car has been planned,” he added.
The Board officials said that besides these upgrades, more 20-car Vande Bharat trains will be ready for launches and one 16-car train will be available for augmentation.
“A tentative replacement plan of Vande Bharat train service is planned on the basis of occupancy. After this, the released rakes (trains) of 16-Car and 8-Car will be utilized for running new services,” Kumar said.
As per scheduled upgradation, three routes -- Mangaluru Central–Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad–Tirupati, Chennai Egmore–Tirunelveli -- which have at present 16-car Vande Bharat will be upgraded to 20-car and the remaining four routes having 8-car Vande Bharat service will get 16-car trains.
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6 women dead, 8 persons injured as bus rams into van in Gujarat's Sabarkantha
Sabarkantha (Gujarat) (PTI): Six women were killed and eight other persons injured after a private bus crashed into a van on a highway in Gujarat's Sabarkantha district on Wednesday, police said.
The van was ferrying women from Modasa in Aravalli district when a speeding bus hit it from behind on National Highway 48 connecting Shamlaji to Himmatnagar in the district, Deputy Superintendent of Police A K Patel said.
According to police, the women were part of a catering team for social events. They were travelling from Modasa in the neighbouring Aravalli district to Hunj village in Himmatnagar to attend a function when they met with the accident.
Six women passengers of the van were killed, Patel said.
Seven other women and the van driver suffered injuries, according to police.
The injured persons were rushed to the Himmatnagar civil hospital. The condition of two of them was critical, the hospital's medical officer, Dr Dhrupad Chauhan, said.
The bodies were sent to a government hospital for a postmortem.
VIDEO | Gujarat: Six persons were killed and four others injured after a private bus rammed into a van on a highway in Sabarkantha district on Wednesday, police said.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) April 29, 2026
The van carrying passengers was on its way from Shamlaji to Himmatnagar when the speeding bus hit it from… pic.twitter.com/Gvr79LfCvi
