Integral Coach Factory (ICF) will manufacture 640 [160 in FY20, 240 in FY21 and 240 in FY22] coaches of Train -18 in the next three years according to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.
Replying to a query in the Parliament, he said that the Vande Bharat express (popular name of Train -18) had cleared safety oscillation trials and was certified by the Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO), Indian Railways’ research arm.
Based on the RDSO certification and own inspection, the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) cleared the train sets for commercial operation.
Presently, two Train-18 rakes run on New Delhi-Varanasi and New Delhi- Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra sectors.
Train-18 is a semi high speed fully air conditioned train with quicker acceleration. It has passenger amenities such as on-board infotainment, GPS based passenger information system, CCTV, automatic sliding doors with retractable coach footsteps and zero discharge vacuum based bio-toilets.
We are seeing some very conflicting reports. There was some reports saying the Train 18 draws excessive power as opposed to International standards & that ICF has violated some procedural norms etc. One report in IRJ an international Railway Journal published a news syaing the IR has floated International Tender for similar train sets!!. So what is the TRUTH
The sad TRUTH is that this is only a proposal.
Two months for Budget and some things have to be included in it. Piyush Saab has to say something also.