Watch Live: PM Modi Will Flag Off 9 Vande Bharat Express Trains Today

Vande Bharat Express: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off nine Vande Bharat trains on Sunday, September 24 at 12:30 PM via video conferencing. These nine Vande Bharat semi-high-speed trains will cover 11 states of India.

The last time new routes of Vande Bharat trains were announced was on July 7, when PM Modi inaugurated the following two new Vande Bharat trains via video-conferencing.

• Jodhpur-Ahmedabad (Sabarmati) Vande Bharat Express

• Gorakhpur-Lucknow Vande Bharat Express

This record will surpass the June 27 record five Vande Bharat Express trains were inaugurated on the same day. 

Another milestone that the Vande Bharat Express project will achieve is the operation of the new orange-grey trains after its successful trial test run which was conducted in August 2023.

Viewers can watch live streaming of the Vande Bharat Express flag-off event on the official YouTube channel of PM Narendra Modi or on the official website of the National Informatics Centre of India here: https://pmindiawebcast.nic.in/

The live streaming of the event will begin at around 12:30 PM today. Tap on the video below to watch the event live.

On the day of the event, Railway Minister, Ashwini Vaishnav took to social platform X (fka Twitter) to share a glimpse of the routes on which these nine Vande Bharat Express trains will ply.

Here's all you need to know about the these new nine Vande Bharat Express trains.

• Rourkela - Bhubaneshwar - Puri Vande Bharat Express (Odisha)

• Udaipur - Jaipur Vande Bharat Express (Rajasthan)

• Kasaragod - Thiruvananthapuram Vande Bharat Express (Kerala)

• Jamnagar - Ahmedabad Vande Bharat Express (Gujarat)

• Tirunelveli - Madurai - Chennai Vande Bharat Express (Tamil Nadu)

• Patna - Howrah Vande Bharat Express (Bihar & West Bengal)

• Hyderabad - Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express (Telangana & Karnataka)

• Ranchi - Howrah Vande Bharat Express (Jharkhand & West Bengal)

• Vijayawada - Chennai (via Renigunta) Vande Bharat Express (Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu)

These nine trains will boost connectivity across eleven states namely Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

As compared to the current fastest train along the route, Rourkela- Bhubaneswar – Puri  Vande Bharat Express and Kasaragod - Thiruvananthapuram Vande Bharat Express will be faster by about 3 hours; Hyderabad – Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express by more than 2.5 hours; Tirunelveli-Madurai- Chennai Vande Bharat Express by more than 2 hours; Ranchi – Howrah  Vande Bharat Express,  Patna – Howrah Vande Bharat Express and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad Vande Bharat Express by about 1 hour; and Udaipur - Jaipur Vande Bharat Express by about half an hour.

Till date, 25 Vande Bharat trains are operational in India, with the highest in the Northern Zone.

• Northern Railway: 4

• Southern Railway: 3

• Central Railway: 3

• Western Railway: 2

• West Central Railway: 2

• North Western Railway: 2

• South East Central Railway: 1

• Eastern Railway: 1

• East Coast Railway: 1

• South Central Railway: 1

• South Eastern Railway: 1

• Northeast Frontier Railway: 1

• East Central Railway: 1

• South Western Railway: 1

• North Eastern Railway: 1

Out of the nine routes on which the new Vande Bharat trains will be inaugurated, the Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram route will see the launch of the new Orange-Grey livery Vande Bharat Express.

After the highly successful operations of the white-blue Vande Bharat Express, Indian Railways had decided to give this train a fresh makeover. A new livery was introduced which was a mix of orange and grey colors. Union minister Ashwini Vaishnav had said that the new colour of the 28th rake of the indigenous train is "inspired by Indian Tricolour".

A blue-white color Vande Bharat Express is already operational on this same route but because of the highest passenger occupancy amongst all the Vande Bharat Express routes the railways have decided to introduce the new orange-grey train on this same route.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw who had visited the ICF factory to inspect the semi-high-speed train mentioned that 25 new improvements have been made in the orange-grey version of Vande Bharat Express.

The new Orange and Grey colored Vande Bharat Express will have the following features:

• Better cushion for seats.

• Extended footrest in the Executive Chair Cars.

• Wash Basin with increased depth.

• Increase in seat declining angle.

• Better lighting in toilets.

• Reading lamp touch will be changed from resistive touch to capacitive touch.

• Better roller blind fabric.

• Anti-climbing device for improved safety.

• Better accessibility to mobile-charging points.

• Provision of fixing points for wheelchairs used by Divyangjan passengers in the driving trailer coaches.