Efforts to increase speeds

For most of Indian Railways' history, speed and comfort were not of primary concern as safety was of utmost importance. The replacement of old ICF coaches by the modern and safer LHB coaches helped in reducing rail accidents significantly.^[14] After tackling the safety concerns to an extent, speed and comfort were finally on the Indian Railways agenda. Proposals were made to introduce semi-high-speed (160–200 km/h) services between major cities.^[15] In 2016, Gatimaan Express was inaugurated as the country's first semi-high-speed service. The train ran on the newly upgraded Grade A line between Tughlakabad and Agra Cantonment that supported speeds up to 160 km/h.^[16]

Talgo train at New Delhi railway station for its 3rd leg of the trial.

In June 2016, Indian Railways sought Requests For Qualification (RFQ) to jointly manufacture 5000 modern EMU sets and was met with a good response from countries like Canada, China, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Native companies like Medha and BHEL also made the cut.^[17] Spanish Talgo trains went as far as conducting a trial run on the Mumbai - Delhi route. The train completed the journey in ten hours (almost six hours quicker than Rajdhani Express) with an average speed of 117.5 km/h but there were many problems related to rakes such as height, coupling, maintenance, problems related to cost-effectiveness and robustness related to harsh environment.^[18] However, the ministry said that Indian Railways could not come with a direct agreement and wanted them to go through a tendering process. Since there was no other bidder, the procurement of these trains was deemed impossible. The Make in India campaign also fuelled the cause for developing the next generation EMU semi-high-speed trainsets indigenously.^[19]

Making an indigenous trainset

After foreign proposals for introducing semi-high-speed capable EMUs were unsuccessful, Indian Railways at ICF headed by general manager Sudhanshu Mani, started developing a new EMU trainset at half the imported cost. Since these trains were planned to be ready by 2018, they were named 'Train-2018' and later 'Train 18'. They were designed to be fully air-conditioned and equipped with automatic plug doors, onboard Wi-Fi, and infotainment out of many other modern facilities. With these modern facilities along with modern technical features, the train was one of its kind in the country and marked a leap into the future.^[20] With sixteen chair cars and a 160 km/h speed, the technology was set to replace Shatabdi services.^[21][22]

During its trial runs, Train 18 became the fastest EMU train in India after attaining a speed of 183 km/h.^[23][24]

Inaugural run

Train 18 was renamed as 'Vande Bharat' as an acknowledgement of the fact that it was completely built in India by Indian engineers and the services were thus named 'Vande Bharat Express'.^[25]

Inauguration of the first Vande Bharat Express between Delhi and Varanasi at the New Delhi railway station

On 15 February 2019, the first Vande Bharat Express between New Delhi and Varanasi was flagged off at the New Delhi railway station by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.^[26][27] The train ran from New Delhi to Varanasi via Kanpur and Prayagraj, connecting Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi to the capital city and reduced the existing travel time along the route by 15%.^[28] The 8-hour journey from New Delhi to Varanasi station covered a total distance of 762 km (473 mi) between the two cities. However, while returning from Varanasi, the train broke down due to a cattle runover. According to reports, four cars of the train experienced an electrical outage and the brakes were reported to be jammed as the train was halted for over an hour at Tundla Junction railway station before resumption.^[29] Later in the year, the second Vande Bharat service was launched between New Delhi and Katra, it is one of the only two first version trainsets of Vande Bharat Express.^[30]

Replacement of Shatabdis

Since the Vande Bharat Express was built to provide a short-distance, fast and modern service between major cities, similar to the Shatabdi Express which was introduced back in 1988 for similar purposes, several train sets were supposed to be built to replace the existing Shatabdis on all routes. But after the inauguration of first two services, the Indian Railways had stopped the production of new sets owing to internal issues.^[31] After the intervention of the Railway Minister, they decided to resume tenders for the production of new sets. However, they wished to provide more time for the manufacturers to come up with the cheapest bid and the fact that the train would require a major upgrade from scratch, as per one of the officials.^[32] These second generation trainsets were developed in 2022 and they entered service on 30 September 2022. It is planned that all Shatabdi Express trains will be phased out and replaced with Vande Bharat trains.^[33]

Vande Metro services

"Vande Metro" is a proposed service that will operate on a short-distance, intercity rail network to connect major cities within a distance of around 100 km (62 mi). The design speed of Vande Metro will be 130 km/h (81 mph) and the train is likely to run at a very high frequency (4-5 times a day). Vande Metro will become a replacement for the existing MEMU services for regional rail connectivity between any two big cities, which are at a distance of 100–120 km (62–75 mi). Vande Metro Services will have a carrying capacity of 300 passengers per coach and will have airconditioned coaches. There will be more standing passengers in the proposed Vande Metro than sitting thus catering to mass commutership like a suburban train such MEMU, DEMU, EMU, etc. This will be a mix product of the EMU DNA with the facilities of a modern metro. Integral Coach Factory known as ICF is planning to roll out one prototype rake of Vande Metro by the end of Financial Year 2023-24. ^[105][106]