Vande Bharat Express: Train 18 Schedule, Route & Ticket Details

Tickets for the Vande Bharat Express, India's fastest train, are sold out for the next 10 days, railways said on Monday, 18 February. The train is 121 percent booked for Tuesday, 112 percent for Wednesday, 109 percent for Friday and 114 percent for Saturday, officials said.

Similarly, from 24 February to 3 March, the train is booked 104 percent on an average.

Train 18, which was recently rechristened Vande Bharat Express, was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, 15 February, from New Delhi Railway Station in the national capital.

The train had developed a snag on its return journey from Varanasi to Delhi on Saturday, hours after its inaugural run. Sources told PTI that officials worked all day to fix the problem emanating from a charging cable malfunction which affected the train's wheels and braking system.

Here is all you need to know about the country’s first semi-high speed train:

1. In its inaugural run, Vande Bharat Express will travel from Delhi to Varanasi in nine hours and forty-five minutes. This includes stoppage time of 40 minutes each at Kanpur and Allahabad where there will be special programmes.
2. Vande Bharat Express was produced indigenously at Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory in 18 months, the PM said as he inspected the train.
3. The semi-high speed Train 18 can run up to a maximum speed of 160 kmph.
4. The train has travel classes like Shatabdi trains, but with better facilities.
5. It will run commercially from 17 February from Delhi to Varanasi, five days a week.
6. The tickets of the first commercial run of Vande Bharat Express have been completely sold out, a senior railway official said on Friday. The bookings for the train began on Thursday.
7. The train has 16 air-conditioned coaches of which two are executive class. The total seating capacity is 1,128 passengers. It is much more than the conventional Shatabdi rakes of equal number of coaches, thanks to shifting of all electric equipment below coaches and seats in the driving coach too.
8. All coaches are equipped with automatic doors, GPS-based audio-visual passenger information system, on-board hotspot WiFi for entertainment purposes and very comfortable seating. All toilets are bio-vacuum type. The lighting is dual mode - diffused for general illumination and personal for every seat.
9. Every coach has a pantry facility to serve hot meals and, hot & cold beverages. The insulation is meant to keep heat and noise to very low levels for additional passenger comfort.
10. Adding up the green footprints, the train has regenerative braking system which can save up to 30 percent of electrical energy.