Vande Bharat Express: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday flagged off the Vande Bharat Express connecting Howrah and New Jalpaiguri, the gateway to the northeast. He attended the vent virtually as he was in Gandhinagar to participate in the last rites of his mother Heeraben who died on Friday early morning.
The next-gen Vande Bharat Express between Howrah-New Jalpaiguri with enhanced safety features and passenger amenities is the first for West Bengal and 7the high-speed train in India.
Vande Bharat Express : 'It’s like a plane'
"It's like a plane," exclaimed a school girl as she walked through the spotless, modern-looking compartment along with her school mates out for a joy ride on the inaugural run of the Vande Bharat train, which will run between the iconic Howrah station and New Jalpaiguri, the gateway to the North East. Vaishnavi Mane, a Class IX student of Command Hospital Kendriya Vidyalaya, and Tanushree of Class VIII, were visibly happy to be part of the first run of the train. Soham Mukherjee, a class XI student from Fort William, also on the train, excitedly said “it feels marvelous to ride this train".
Here are the highlights of features and amenities
- The blue-and-white train, which covers a distance of 564 km in 7.45 hours, will save three hours of travel time compared to other trains on the route, officials said.
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The train has an aerodynamically designed engine whose nose does compare loosely with a jet-liner's nose. While the spanking new chair cars give the look of an airline interior.
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It will have three stoppages at Barsoi, Malda and Bolpur.
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The state-of-the-art train has 16 coaches, including two for drivers.
- The Vande Bharat Express train has an intelligent braking system which enables better acceleration and deceleration. All coaches are equipped with automatic doors; GPS based audio-visual passenger Information system, on-board hotspot Wi-Fi for entertainment purposes, and very
- comfortable seating. The executive class also has rotating chairs.
- All toilets are bio-vacuum type. The lighting is dual mode, viz. diffused for general illumination and personal for every seat.
- Every coach has a pantry with facilities to serve hot meals, hot and cold beverages.
- The insulation is meant to keep heat and noise to very low levels for additional passenger comfort.
- The total seating capacity is 1,128 passengers. It is much more than the conventional Shatabdi rake of equal number of coaches, thanks to shifting of all electric
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