Indian Railways invites bids for 58 new Vande Bharat trains

On Saturday, Indian Railways released a tender for 58 Vande Bharat Express rakes. This follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Independence Day that 75 trains will be launched in 75 weeks, connecting various parts of India. The Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, the Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareilly, and the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala will produce the trains' coaches. Railways had issued a tender for 44 Vande Bharat rakes earlier this year. By 2024, 102 Vande Bharat trains, including the new 58 rakes, will be operational. The tender will be open until October 20. On 21 September a pre-bid meeting will be held, with the deadline for pre-bid queries being September 14. Tenders for the design, development, manufacturing, integration, and testing of traction propulsion electrics for the 58 rakes of Vande Bharat trains were released on August 28. Only two Shatabdi-style semi-high-speed trains are currently in service. The new trains will have four emergency windows for easy evacuation of passengers in the event of an emergency, as well as disaster lights in all coaches and additional emergency push buttons. The coaches will be upgraded to include a centralised coach monitoring system for all electrical, climate control, and other important train set functions as part of the upgrade. They'll also have more comfortable seats with a reclining pushback arrangement. Indian Railways issued an updated tender in September for the purchase of 44 semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains, requiring 75% domestic components. In 2019, a Vande Bharat train was launched on the New Delhi-Varanasi route for the first time. Indian Railways recently began reviewing the bidding process for its $4.05 billion tender for the operation of private passenger trains. Image Source Also read: Vande Bharat Express to get new features by 2022 Also read: Integral Coach Factory to introduce new Train 18 prototype