CHENNAI: Even as speculation is rife that production of Vande Bharat train sets might be shifted to Modern Coach Factory in Raebareli and Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala, the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai is getting ready to resume production of two rakes of semi high speed train coaches.
The railway board recently directed ICF to build two sets of Train 18 (also known as Vande Bharat Express) semi high speed rakes each comprising 16 coaches. The rakes are scheduled to be rolled out by March next year, official sources said.
Last year, the railways announced that it would build 44 rakes of Vande Bharat by 2024 and invited bids for procuring electric traction kits. A Hyderabad-based company won the bids to supply a propulsion system for making train sets. However, owing to lockdown and other administrative reasons, the proposal was put into cold storage. “Ashwini Vaishnaw, who recently took over as the Union Minister for Railways, has decided to proceed with manufacturing of Vande Bharat coaches as per the earlier schedule. In a recent meeting, the Minister asked officials to take steps to introduce ten Vande Bharat Express trains by August 15 next year, marking 75th year of Independence,” official sources added.
Meanwhile, a senior railway official said that ICF will build two rakes of Vande Bharat as per the revised specification of Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO). Train 18 was the first self propelled train without locomotives manufactured by the ICF with over 80 per cent indigenous materials. It was first rolled out in October 2018. The train, which was renamed as Vande Bharat Express, was introduced between New Delhi and Varanasi in February 2019. A few months later, the second train was introduced on the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra - New Delhi route.
Although the Train 18 was cleared for operation at 160 kmph, the manufacturing of a prototype met with controversy after the RDSO raised objections over the specifications of Roof Mounted AC Package Unit (RMPU) and flagged safety concerns over the electrical wirings. Following this, the railway board ordered an inquiry and temporarily halted the production of Train 18 rakes.
“Once the prototype of the Vande Bharat train with revised specifications is manufactured, the propulsion supplier has to maintain the train set till it completes one lakh km journey. Only then, the railways will go for large scale production of Train 18 sets. In addition to the ICF, RCF (Kapurthala) and MCF (Raebareli) are likely to be roped into producing Train sets,” the official further said.