Kerala first Vande Bharat launched: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday interacted with school students onboard the Indian Railways semi-high speed train Vande Bharat, which was flagged off by him in Kerala. The new Vande Bharat train is Kerala's first which will run between Thiruvananthapuram and the northernmost Kasaragod district of the state.
The students during their interaction with the Prime Minister shared their thoughts about the train, and cleanliness in railway stations.
One of the students shared a poem on the country while another one talked about her vision for the nation.
A student also said that he felt like an airplane kind of experience when he was asked by Prime Minister whether he found the platform clean.
Students had also brought various paintings of Vande Bharat train and PM Modi.
Commercial service of Vande Bharat to start from April 26
The excitement of the state getting its first Vande Bharat train has been in the air for the past one week when it arrived here with much fanfare.
Soon after the inauguration, the train is being run only for invitees. The first commercial service will start from Kasargod on Wednesday and will reach here in 7 hours and 50 minutes. The first service from here to Kasargod will begin on Thursday.
While the regular commercial service will have stops at Kollam, Kottayam, Thrissur, Shornur, Kozhikode and Kannur and terminating at Kasargod, the inaugural special train flagged by Modi will stop at more stations.
PM Modi, who arrived at Kochi on Monday evening, reached the Thiruvananthapuram railway station this morning.
After briefly interacting with a group of schoolchildren, who were given the opportunity to travel on the inaugural run, the PM got down and flagged off the train.
The train has 16 coaches of which two are executive with 104 seats.
On its inaugural run, all the who's who in the state capital drawn from various sectors of the civil society were invited and included religious leaders, businessmen and technocrats who were spotted seated in the train since morning.
Present along with Modi during the flagging off were Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, local MP-Shashi Tharoor among others.
(With inputs from IANS)
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