Will Vande Bharat’s Southern Version Lose Steam Due to Overlapping Schedule with Shatabdi? Experts Chime In

India’s fifth Vande Bharat Express, which will be officially flagged off on November 11, has raised a red flag among mobility experts. While they welcome the lighter, faster and environment-friendly train to southern India, they are befuddled by its timings and speed.

Experts are concerned about the time taken between destinations and the near overlapping schedules of Vande Bharat and Shatabdi Express.

“The timings make no sense, and if the train is running alongside Shatabdi with a time difference of just 10 minutes then it’s a case of poor planning and execution. Was there any consultation with stakeholders like commuters or the railway consumer forum before scheduling the train and route? If the railways have an explanation for it, then well and good. Otherwise, it sounds like an arbitrary decision taken by people in Delhi, who are not even remotely connected with the ground reality,” said civic and mobility expert Srinivas Alavilli to News18.

While Alavilli welcomes the semi-high speed, low emission, environmentally safer travel option, which has the potential to reduce air travel, he also questions the rationale behind launching a superfast train when tracks are not yet ready for it.

“I would like to know from the railways when they plan to reduce travel time between Chennai and Mysuru, as the tracks won’t be able to handle the expected top speed in the current state. On the one hand, you don’t give suburban trains saying there is a need to build more capacity, but on the other, why bring in high-speed trains before the tracks are even ready?” Alavilli asked.

Vande Bharat Express will carry train numbers 20607 from Chennai to Mysuru and 20608 on its return trip. From Chennai, the train will start its journey at 5.50 am, pass through Jolarpettai junction at around 8.30 am and reach Bengaluru by 10.25 am for a five-minute halt to complete its journey to Mysuru by 12.30 pm, the same day.

The semi high-speed train and the currently operating Shatabdi Express will be running on the same route, on the same days, just 10 minutes apart from each other. Another mobility expert Sanjeev Dyamanavvar raised a flag on route planning and timings of the new Vande Bharat train.

“Introducing the Vande Bharat Express is a good thing. There are, however, several questions on how the timings have been worked out and how it would benefit. If Vande Bharat left Mysuru, say at 5 am, and reached Bengaluru at 7.30 am and the same train is used in the evening to return to Mysuru, many professionals and government employees will use it to travel between both cities daily. Vande Bharat can be used more effectively. By road, it will take close to four hours,” Dyamanavvar told News18.

This Vande Bharat will be the slowest train in the country due to speed restrictions. News18 had earlier reported how the the southern edition of the train will take around six hours and 40 minutes to complete a distance of 504 km, one way between Mysuru and Chennai. The elevated gradient near Jolarpettai in Tamil Nadu will further affect the speed of the train, said railway officials.

“It is still not too late to consider options of making Vande Bharat more travel effective and traveller friendly by changing the timings as compared to Shatabdi,” he added.

As of now, Vande Bharat Express will ply between Chennai and Mysuru via Bengaluru five times a week. Complete with air-conditioned coaches and recliner seats, it will have two segments – executive and economy car. The seats in the executive class will have 180-degree rotatable seats while the ones in economy have recliners. It has 16 coaches and a seating capacity of 1,128 passengers.

Calling Vande Bharat Express a “shadow train”, another Bengaluru-based mobility expert Vivek Kalkur said Vande Bharat should be running in the opposite direction to Shatabdi Express rather than a few minutes apart.

“This looks like a pre-poll gimmick and a decision taken in haste. There were allegations that Vande Bharat trains were being launched only in northern India and so it seems like this is a way of appeasing the south, especially a state that is going to go to polls shortly,” Kalkur said.

Asked if Shatabdi Express will be phased out, Kalkur said it was what the railways intended to do. “They will slowly phase out Shatabdi and Rajdhani and replace them with Vande Bharat, which is a good decision. It will help decongest platforms as there will be no need for loco-reversals and quick acceleration and deceleration will save time,” he said, adding, “unlike other trains, the Vande Bharat Express does not have a luggage van and I wonder why?”

On November 7, the railways successfully conducted the trial run of Vande Bharat Express between Chennai and Mysuru. The train, which will officially be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 11, raced out of Chennai’s Dr MGR Central railway station at 5.50 am and reached Mysuru at 12.30 pm. It stopped at Katpadi and KSR Bengaluru before speeding off to Mysuru. The train also did a return trip, leaving Mysuru at 1.05 pm and reaching Chennai at 7.35 pm, as per railway officials.

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