Dawn of EMUs The first
electric multiple unit (EMU) technology in India was introduced in Mumbai as a
suburban railway service on 3 February 1925. With an increase in demand post-independence, India began to import EMUs from
Europe and
Japan, before it could manufacture indigenously. In the 1960s,
BHEL, an Indian public sector giant started manufacturing electrical equipment for indigenous EMUs, which then started entering service in the same decade. During the same time,
Integral Coach Factory of
Chennai, a government-owned manufacturer of rail coaches started developing EMUs indigenously. This is regarded as a major leap in the Indian railway industry as they became the earliest precursors to Vande Bharat technology.
Need for speed and comfort For most of Indian Railways' history, speed and comfort were not of primary concern as safety was of utmost importance. While India saw 325 accidents in 2003–04, this number was down to 106 in 2015–16. The replacement of old
ICF coaches by the modern and safer
LHB coaches also helped the cause significantly. During the same period, Indian Railways had introduced
Gatimaan and
Tejas services that enhanced comfort with their modern LHB coaches. As the next step, Indian Railways at
ICF headed by general manager Sudhanshu Mani, started designing a new
EMU trainset that was set to be developed at half the imported cost. Since these trains were planned to be ready by 2018, they were named 'Train-2018' and later 'Train 18'. They were designed to be fully air-conditioned and equipped with automatic doors, onboard Wi-Fi, and infotainment and many other modern facilities. It would mark the beginning of a new era in the Indian Railways where modern EMUs for long distances beyond suburban railways started plying. Train 18 was designed with the
LHB coach as a base. With sixteen chair cars and a 160 km/h speed, the technology was set to replace
Shatabdi services.
Prototype and related issues The manufacturing of Train 18 was coincidentally completed 18 months after initiation. It was built at a cost of and had 80% indigenous components. During its trial runs, Train 18 became the fastest EMU train in India after attaining a speed of 180 km/h, during its test run at the Kota-Sawai Madhopur section. This speed was 4 km/h shy of India's overall best record of 184 km/h achieved by a
WAP-5 Class locomotive back in 1997. Train 18 was renamed as 'Vande Bharat Express' as an acknowledgement for the fact that it was completely built in India by Indian engineers. On 15 February 2019, the first Vande Bharat Express between
New Delhi and
Varanasi was flagged off at the
New Delhi railway station by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi. The train ran from
New Delhi to
Varanasi via
Kanpur and
Prayagraj, connecting Uttar Pradesh's
Varanasi to the capital city and reduced the existing travel time along the route by 15%. The 8-hour journey from New Delhi to Varanasi station covered a total distance of between the two cities. However, while returning from
Varanasi, the train broke down due to a cattle runover. According to reports, four cars of the train experienced an electrical outage and brakes were reported to be jammed as the train was halted for over an hour at
Tundla Junction railway station before resumption. The fleet of Vande Bharat trainsets was set to expand in numbers but Indian Railways had stopped the production of new sets owing to internal issues. After the intervention of the Railway Minister, Railways decided to resume tenders for the production of new sets. However, they wished to provide more time so that the manufacturers could come up with the cheapest bid and because the train would require a major upgrade from scratch, as per one railway official.
Second generation trainsets In January 2021, Indian Railways awarded a contract to Hyderabad-based Medha Servo Drives to manufacture 44 second generation Vande Bharat trainsets, in accordance with the
Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative that required 75% of the components to be locally sourced. In March 2022, Indian Railways awarded contracts to seven companies to manufacture 58 additional trainsets at a total cost of . The seven companies were Medha Servo Drives,
Alstom,
Siemens,
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL),
Titagarh Wagons, Saini Electricals and CGL. During manufacturing, the supply of wheels from Ukraine was disrupted due to the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, delaying production. Indian Railways later sought
Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and
Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) to manufacture the wheels. On 9 September 2022, trial runs for the second version of Vande Bharat Express were completed, It entered service on 30 September 2022. In early 2023, an allocation was made for Vande Bharat services with a reduced car configuration, for lower demand, known as Mini Vande Bharat Express. It was projected to cost about per rake for an 8-car configuration, at a cost of per car. Indian Railways was targeting for manufacturing 1,000 Mini Vande Bharat rakes of 8-car configuration. During the financial year of 2023–24, an allocation of had been made for designing the concept and preliminary research. In July 2023, Indian Railways announced a new saffron and grey livery for Vande Bharat trains inspired by the Indian tricolour. The Union Minister of Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said that 25 improvements have been incorporated into the trains, including anti-climbing devices. These anti-climbing devices will also be added to trains other than Vande Bharat. In August 2024, trial runs of 20-car Vande Bharat were conducted on the Mumbai–Ahmedabad route. == Engineering ==