Terrorist attack can’t stop India’s march to development: Goyal

Mukesh Ranjan
On Board Vande Bharat Express, February 15

As the inaugural run of Vande Bharat Express began on Friday after being flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from New Delhi Railway Station, Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal, who was on board, said the plan is afoot to expand the services of this semi-high speed train to all four metro cities. 

Talking to reporters travelling with him on the train to Varanasi, the minister claimed that the coward attack by terrorists at Pulwama would never be able to deter India’s 130 crore people’s march to development. 

“Train 18 or Vande Bharat Express is one such feat that our own engineers and workmen have accomplished. We all are feeling proud today,” Goyal said. 

The minister said the railways had already placed orders for another 30 sets of train 18 with Integrated Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai. “The plan is to induct 100 such trains in the years to come and run them on Golden Quadrilateral to connect all four metro cities of the country,” he added. 

The train began its journey from New Delhi station at 11.19 am and is expected to reach Varanasi around 9.30 pm. Though on a normal commercial run it would take eight hours between Delhi and Varanasi, On Friday it would take more time as there will be longer stay at Kanpur and Allahabad stations for ceremonial functions, said a senior official. 

Member Traffic Railway Board Girish Pillai said, “Even without having any substantive publicity”, for the booking for its first commercial run on February 17, 100 per cent tickets have been sold for both sides.”

Pillai said the speed of the train depended on two factors--capability of the trains and the track available. “Train 18 can run with highest speed of 160 kmph, but the track capacity is 130 kmph and so it is currently running at a speed between 110 kmph and 130 kmph,” he said.

Pillai also indicated that the railways would soon make efforts to replace the existing Shatabdi trains with Vande Bharat Express. The priority routes could be Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Amritsar, Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Delhi-Agra.