New Delhi, Oct 15 Sudhanshu Mani, the creator of India’s Vande Bharat train, has welcomed the Integral Coach Factory’s plan to finalise the design of a 24-coach sleeper version by November 10 this year, after a delay of over four years.
The Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai had issued the technical specifications for a 24-coach Vande Bharat sleeper train more than four years ago. The ICF recently announced that it would finalise the design by November 10, with the prototype expected to be ready by May or June 2027.
Currently, a pair of 16-coach Vande Bharat sleeper trains are operational between Kamakhya in Assam and Howrah in West Bengal, and receive an overwhelming response from passengers.
It is a modern train with several passenger-centric features, such as semi-high speed, ergonomically designed berths with improved cushioning, automatic doors with vestibules for smooth movement, enhanced ride comfort with superior suspension and noise reduction, and disinfectant technology to maintain high sanitation.
“The ICF’s plan to finalise the design of 24-coach Vande Bharat sleeper train by November 2026 and manufacture a prototype by mid-2027 is a welcome and vital step. Better late than never, this timeline is critical,” Mani said.
“Meeting the timeline will allow the ICF to leverage its core design and manufacturing capacities, optimise strained track resources with maximum-capacity trainsets, and deliver the premium overnight travel experience the public expects,” he said.
Mani said that from its inception in 2018, it was clear that the Vande Bharat platform would eventually require a sleeper variant.
“The market for daytime chair-car services was bound to plateau, making overnight trains an operational necessity. This has been validated by the situation today; as many as 30 per cent of all Vande Bharat day services suffer from poor occupancy,” he said, while appreciating the ICF’s historic legacy in coach manufacturing.
Highlighting the delay, he said that originally, the ICF planned to deliver a sleeper prototype by late 2019; however, a nearly four-year hiatus in the Vande Bharat project derailed this timeline.
He argued that the delay forced a suboptimal compromise: reducing standard 16-coach chair-car formations to 8-coach train sets on some routes, presumably to match the various optimistic numbers projected by the government.
“Given that Indian railway paths are highly congested and expensive assets, maximising line capacity with longer trains should be a critical priority,” Mani said.
He acknowledged that to accelerate development, Indian Railways pivoted to the private sector, awarding contracts to Kinet Railway Solutions (a joint venture of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited and Russia’s TMH) for 120 sleeper trains, and a consortium of Titagarh and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited for another 80 rakes, but when contractual and design clearances delayed these private ventures, the Railways ordered an initial batch of 10 sleeper train sets, surprisingly not on the ICF but on the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) to jumpstart the rollout.
“The country is now witnessing the dawn of overnight Vande Bharat services. A BEML-built rake successfully inaugurated the commercial sleeper experience, operating a key long-distance corridor between Howrah and Kamakhya,” Mani stated.
In this context, the ICF’s plan to finalise its design by November 2026 and manufacture a prototype 24-coach Vande Bharat Sleeper train by mid-2027 is a welcome and vital step, he said.
(PTI News)
