Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday shared photos of the concept train of Vande Bharat's sleeper version adding that it will arrive in early 2024.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw wrote, "Concept train - Vande Bharat (sleeper version)... Coming soon… early 2024".
The new version of the Vande Bharat train is expected to have 16 coaches. Over 850 people will be able to travel in the newly designed train.
In September, the Union Minister said that the basic design of the sleeper version of the Vande Bharat train was approved and its manufacturing has already started. The semi-high-speed train's sleeper version is likely to be put on track test in December this year and its roll-out will be in February, he said.
Indian Railways Integral Coach Factory in Chennai and the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) factory based in Bengaluru will be manufacturing the new sleeper version of the Vande Bharat Express trains.
Apart from the sleeper version, the Railways is also working on the design of Vande Bharat train's 'Metro' version. Overall, there will be three versions of the Vande Bharat trains including the chair car version, sleeper coach, and metro.
On September 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched nine new Vande Bharat trains across 11 states in one go. The trains were flagged off on routes including Udaipur-Jaipur, Tirunelveli-Madurai-Chennai, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Vijayawada-Chennai (via Renigunta), Patna-Howrah, Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram, Rourkela-Bhubaneswar-Puri, Ranchi-Howrah and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad.
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