Railways reduces Advance Reservation Period from current 120 days to 60 now
The Ministry of Railways had announced this change in the ARP for train bookings by Indian travelers in order to promote genuine passengers.
The sleeper version of the Vande Bharat Express train, which has become a centre of attraction among railway passengers, will be designed for a speed of 220 km per hour and these aluminum-made sleeper version trains will run at a speed of 200 km per hour on the tracks.
Sitting version Vande Bharat Express trains will be replaced by Shatabdi Express in a phased manner while the sleeper version is going to be an alternative to Rajdhani Express trains. For this, the Railways has issued a tender for making 400 Vande Bharat trains and the work will be approved in the month of January.
According to Railway Board officials, four big domestic and foreign companies have come forward to produce 400 Vande Bharat trains. The tender includes the design, manufacturing, and maintenance of trains. As per the plan, the first 200 Vande Bharat trains will have seating on the lines of Shatabdi Express.
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All these trains will be designed for 180-km per hour speed. But considering the insufficient safety and security of the railway tracks, their speed will be 130 km per hour. These trains will be of steel.
In the second phase, 200 Vande Bharat trains will be sleepers and they will be made of aluminum. He informed that the sleeper Vande Bharat trains will run at a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour. For this, the tracks of the Delhi-Mumbai, and Delhi-Kolkata railways are being repaired.
Signal system and bridges are being fixed, fencing work is going on. Due to this, the Vande Bharat trains can be run at semi-high speed. Apart from this, anti-collision technical armor is being installed on both railway routes at a cost of Rs 1,800 crore.
A total of 400 trains will be produced at ICF, Chennai, Latur (Maharashtra) Rail Factory, and Sonepat Factory (Haryana). Railways have set a target of making 400 trains in the next two years. It may be noted that the work of making 78 Vande Bharat Express (sitting) has been given last year.
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