Children up to age 12 won’t need to travel alone: DGCA

Railways calls for tenders for 58 trains

The Indian railways has launched a tender for 58 Vande Bharat train sets. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the launch of 75 such trains in 75 weeks to to commemorate 75 years of Independence.

At present, two such Shatabdi-type semi-high speed trains are in operation.

The new coaches will be manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, and Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareilly.

A pre-bid meeting will be held on September 21. The last date for submitting bids is October 20.

The railways had in September last year floated a revised tender for procuring 44 semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains, mandating 75% domestic component, making it a domestic tender.

The next lot of Vande Bharat trains with upgraded facilities and seating space and other features designed for emergencies, is expected to be commercially available from June 2022 onwards.

The coaches are likely to four emergency windows for easy evacuation, backup disaster lights in all coaches and increase in emergency push buttons to four per coach.

The coaches will also have a Centralised Coach Monitoring System for all electrical, climate control and functioning of other vital systems of the train.

An important upgrade in the new coaches will also include the pushback arrangement for reclining of seats. In the first two rakes of the Vande Bharat trains, issues regarding the seating comfort level had been raised.
The first prototype is likely to be out by March-April 2022.