The ambitious train of the Indian Railways, Vande Bharat Express, found itself in trouble on Sunday, when it’s Air Conditioning stopped working 10 minutes before reaching Allahabad. Passengers on board the Varanasi-Delhi Vande Bharat Express were stranded inside the train for around an hour without lights, fan and air conditioning when its auxiliary converter failed, officials said.
As per the officials, at 4:50 pm the train’s AC stopped working before reaching Allahabad station. The glitch was rectified, cooling ensured and the train left at around 6 pm.
The process to rectify the issue took around an hour during which the passengers were stranded in the train without any basic facility at Allahabad.
Vande Bharat Express also known as Train 18 was launched on February 15, by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on New Delhi-Varanasi route. The train takes 8 hours to complete the approx 800 kms journey in between the two cities.
This is not the first time that the train has faced an issue, as a day after its launch, the train broke out on its way back to Delhi in Tundla, 200 kms far from the National Capital. In March, a minor fire broke out in the transformer of the coach of the train.
Earlier this year, the production of the train sets was stopped over allegations of favoritism and lack of transparency. In July, Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal met the representatives of manufactures and promised a tranparent level field playing to all of them.
The semi-high speed train is an indigenous Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) manufactured by the Chennai based Integrated Coach Factory (ICF). The train can run up to a maximum speed of 160 km/h.
Built at a cost of Rs 100 crore, the train has 16 compartments with electrically operated automatic sliding doors.
Another set of Vande Bharat Express was launched on the route of New Delhi to Katra in Jammu and Kashmir by Amit Shah on October 3.