Uttarakhand and Northeast India will have their first Vande Bharat trains flagged off in the last week of May.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually flag off the Delhi to Dehradun Vande Bharat on May 25, and bookings for passengers will likely be accepted from May 29. While the current Dehradun Janshatabdi traverses a distance of 305 km in five hours and 50 minutes, it is being claimed that the Vande Bharat will cut travel time by at least an hour.
Another Vande Bharat between Guwahati in Assam to New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal is likely to be flagged off on May 29. The distance between Guwahati and New Jalpaiguri is nearly 400 km and is currently covered in six hours by Rajdhani Express.
Two more Vande Bharat trains - one from Mumbai to Goa and another from Ranchi to Patna - are being planned.
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The 16-coach semi-high-speed train now runs in States like Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Punjab among others.
Apart from daytime Vande Bharat trains, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Vande Metro trains for shorter distances connecting two cities and Vande Sleeper trains for longer overnight journeys will also be rolled out.
