It was on 15th Feb 2019, India’s very own Vande Bharat Express, initially nick-name Train-18, manufactured entirely in India, was inaugurated for its maiden journey from our capital city of Delhi to our oldest pilgrimage city of Varanasi. With decades of customary red tapism and rampant corruption, I doubt anyone in India believed we could manufacture even a toy train, forget a real rail train! But agree it or not, we are asked to wipe and open our eyes and mind again and look at our transforming India! In 2015 when Indian Railways issued bid to manufacture high-speed trains no one met the necessary criteria. Rather than crapping or corrupting the bid, decision was taken to manufacture them on our own! And look at what we have achieved – within 4 years we have our first semi-high-speed passenger train with aero-dynamic design, world-class features and with a potential speed of 180 km/hour rolling on our rails! What an achievement ! The first heavyweight, perceptible and striking success of “Make In India” ! Another interesting anecdote read is while the wheels of Vande Bharat were initially ordered from foreign countries, India started to manufacture that too in own factories since 2022! In fact the vision has gone so far that there is already planning in progress for fourth generation (Vande Bharat 4.0 – VB4) trains which can hit a speed of 200 km/hour!
Within no time, Vande Bharat has become every traveler’s dream and with 99% average occupancy our states started to queue up to get one for them! In Kerala, we also wished to have one. But how can our small state in the southern corner can dream so big! But then, we are asked again - wipe your eyes and look – India is transforming fast! And here on this 25th day of April 2023, we witnessed the unimaginable - Hurray ! Vande Bharat Express is rolling on in our state too - from Thriuvananthapuram to Kasargod ! This entire day, each and every Kerala news channels were sprinting to cover the live visuals of Vande Bharat. Kerala witnessed an unprecedented, sensational, majestic welcome one can imagine for a passenger train in its entire history – while media rolled in and out of VB, politicians competed to show off, eminent personalities, selected school children queued up for the maiden journey and become the part of history. I have never seen our state with so much of euphoria and elation in any recent times!
Several asked me – why didn’t you attempt for a travel in Vande Bharat or at least go and see its maiden journey? In fact I wished to and even tried too. But the maiden ride tickets are for special and selected ones’ and we are neither of these! But for those who asked me, I had a little nice experience to share and here it is -
It was Saturday evening of 12th Nov 2022. We (family members of 7) were on our way back to home after a pilgrimage to Tirupathi. Our return journey was from Chennai Central. We reached the station by evening though our train is set to depart only by 9 in the night. Having enough time to relax we found a nice clean place on the floor to keep our luggage and stretch ourselves. While relaxing in sleep mode, suddenly one of Nandus noticed something unusual in the arrival/departure display on the screen. In the arrivals it just displayed an uncommon train name – we waited for it to appear again and then read it loud – “Wow ! It is Vande Bharat ! Vande Bharat is set to arrive around 7:30”. However the platform number was not displayed. Someone in between googled and gave us more information – “ Hey, this is the first commercial run of the Chennai Central – Mysuru Vande Bharat Express, the first one of South India, built in Chennai itself, and it is on its way back to Chennai, it should arrive by 7:30. Let us try to find out the platform where it will arrive!” Keeping the seniors as luggage guards, we with Nandus went in search of the Vande Bharat platform. Being Chennai Central, the end point station, it was easy to move through the platforms. After wandering through all, we found the one line which is empty and confirmed our Vande Bharat is set to come through this line on Platform No.1. Then started our wait staring at the dead end of the rails. After a brief wait, we found the beaming white light of Vande Bharath piercing through the darkness. Aha! It is cruising in slowly through the light little drizzle at Chennai Central - Several people meanwhile gathered around to watch this moment. And in a short while, we saw the elegant white skin of Vande Bharat closing in to us, the rain drops sparkling in its beam light and sprinkling on it as wishes from heaven – what a glorious historic moment we happened to witness ! We relished it to its completeness – talking to the travelers, loco-pilots, peeking into the drivers cabin, taking selfie-snaps and then finally getting in to feel the ambience of its interior too! A proud, once-in-a-lifetime and historic “Mera Bharath Mahaan” moment!
The Moments :)
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| The Vande Crowd! |
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| First Time In VB |
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| Vande Mataram |
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