Vande Bharat Delhi-Katra Express launched: Here's all you need to know

The second Vande Bharat Express, also known as 'Train 18' has been inaugurated by Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday morning in Delhi. The high-speed train is all set for its first commercial run on October 5. The train is expected to bring down the travel time from New Delhi to Vaishno Devi (Katra) to eight hours from 12 hours. The bookings of the train are available on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website. 

The Prime Minister also hailed the train's launch and spoke about its benefits for tourism in J&K:

Vande Bharat Express: The Route

The New Delhi-Katra Vande Bharat Express will depart from the New Delhi station at 6 am, and reach Katra station (Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra- SVDK) at 2 pm. During the return journey, the train will depart from Katra railway station at 3 pm and reach New Delhi at 11 pm. Further, the train will halt at  Ambala Cantt, Ludhiana and Jammu Tawi stations for two minutes each. It will run on all days of the week except Tuesday. 

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Facilities

The second Vande Bharat Express is a semi high-speed engineless train that will run between Delhi and Katra at a speed of 130 km per hour. This will bring down the travel time to eight hours from 12 hours. The train is an all air-conditioned chair car service train with 16 coaches. Along with this, the train is supposed to have a bigger pantry compared to the first Vande Bharat Express. They have also installed deep freezers in the train. Keeping in mind PM Modi's 'Swachh Bharat' initiative, they have broadened the vestibules. Along with this, in order to conserve water, they have installed water discharge tapes in the train. For sun protection, an anti-glare screen has been put up on the windows. Further, for sound protection, sound insulators have been installed. The train was designed and built under PM Modi's Make in India movement by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. 

Read: Vande Bharat Express' first run on October 5 for Delhi-Katra route

The Fare

The minimum fare from New Delhi (NDLS) to Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra (SVDK) station will be around Rs 1,630, while the maximum fare will range around Rs 3,015. 

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The first Vande Bharat Express

The first semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express was launched earlier in February this year which travels on the route from Delhi to Varanasi. Inaugurated by PM Modi, the train has marked as India's first-ever engineless train. The travel time from Delhi to Varanasi has been cut short by four to five hours. According to reports, the train takes around eight hours to complete one side journey. 

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