Indian Railways to manufacture 640 very high speed coaches |
Giving boost to NDA government`s Make in India initiative, the Indian Railways has put up a plan to manufacture about 640 coaches of country`s first semi-high speed train, the `Train 18` or the Vande Bharat Express, as it is called now. The target number is to be achieved in the next 3 years. Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal stated this in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The production programmes for 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 include the manufacture of 160, 240 and 240 coaches respectively for train sets at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF). Out of the lot, two rakes have already been put into service. Train 18 is a semi high speed, fully air conditioned train, having quicker acceleration and contemporary passenger amenities like onboard infotainment and GPS based passenger information system, CCTV, automatic sliding doors with retractable coach footsteps and zero discharge vacuum-based bio-toilets etc. At present, `Train 18` trains are being operated on New Delhi-Varanasi and New Delhi- Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra routes. The minister added that "Indian Railways is planning to produce 40 `Vande Bharat` rakes and it would be possible to determine the exact cost of manufacturing during their production."
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