Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off two Vande Bharat Trains at Gorakhpur Railway Station on Friday.
Prime Minister Modi will flag off Gorakhpur – Lucknow Vande Bharat Express and Jodhpur – Ahmedabad (Sabarmati) Vande Bharat Express as part of his two-day visit covering four states on July 7 and 8.
Gorakhpur – Lucknow Vande Bharat Express
Gorakhpur – Lucknow Vande Bharat Express will pass through Ayodhya and will improve connectivity to important cities in the state and also give a fillip to tourism, according to a statement from Prime Minister's Office.
Prime Minister Modi will also lay the foundation stone of Gorakhpur Railway Station redevelopment. The station will be redeveloped at a cost of around Rs. 498 crore and will provide world class passenger amenities, PMO statement said.
Jodhpur – Ahmedabad (Sabarmati) Vande Bharat Express
Jodhpur – Sabarmati Vande Bharat Express will improve connectivity to famous places such as Jodhpur, Abu Road, Ahmedabad and will boost socio-economic development in the region.
The first ever Vande Bharat Express was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the year 2019 on the New Delhi-Kanpur-Allahabad-Varanasi route. Vande Bharat Express can run up to a maximum speed of 160 kmph and has travel classes like Shatabdi Train but with better facilities.
The longest journey of the Vande Bharat Express trains is around 10 hours and the shortest is of about three hours.
Meanwhile, news agency PTI citing sources on Wednesday reported that the Railways is reviewing the fares of some short-distance Vande Bharat trains with low occupancy with an aim to reduce prices in order to make them more viable for people
Barring a handful of such low occupancy trains, most of the services of this semi-high speed train currently is running with full occupancy, according to official data.
Vande Bharat trains like the Indore-Bhopal, the Bhopal-Jabalpur and the Nagpur-Bilaspur express, along with some others are likely to fall in this category, the sources told PTI.
According to the report, some of the Vande Bharat trains with top occupancy are:
Kasaragod to Trivandrum train is the best-performing Vande Bharat Express (183%),
Trivandrum to Kasaragod Vande Bharat train (176%)
Gandhinagar-Mumbai Central Vande Bharat Express (134%),
Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat Express (129%)
Varanasi-New Delhi Vande Bharat Express (128%)
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