Indian Railways to come out with tender for 200 fourth-generation Vande Bharat trains by August

Representative Image: Vande Bharat Express, India's first semi-high speed train

As part of the government of India’s plan to manufacture 400 Vande Bharat trains in the next three years, as announced in Union Budget 2022-23, Indian Railways is in the final stages of readying a tender to manufacture the fourth-generation Vande Bharat trains.

"The bidding documents for the fourth generation of 200 Vande Bharat trains have been finalised and we are planning to float the tender by August," a senior official in the Ministry of Railways told Moneycontrol.

He added that once Indian Railways commissions the first two prototypes of the second-generation Vande Bharat trains in August, the tender for the fourth generation of Vande Bharat trains would be floated.

"We expect manufacturers to take around 18-20 months to come up with a prototype before they can start the series production. In order to complete the order in a timely manner, it is important to award the tender as soon as possible," another official in the Ministry of Railways said.

Two-part tender

Indian Railways will float the tender for 200 new trains in two parts. The first lot of 100 semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains will have a distributed power system, the second lot of 100 will be equipped with articulated bogies and a concentrated power car system, multiple government officials said.

The fourth generation of Vande Bharat trains will be made of aluminum and will have a sleeper coach for long-distance journeys. These new trains will have 3 classes along with AC-1, AC-2, and AC-3 coaches.

“The ask will be to make the new trains more energy efficient and upgrade them over the last lot with the use of aluminium,” another senior Railway Ministry official said. He added that an aluminium body will make each train around 40-80 tonnes lighter than the third-generation Vande Bharat trains. This will mean lower consumption of energy as well as better speed potential.

According to estimates by the Indian Railways, each second-generation Vande Bharat train will cost around Rs 115 crore each. At present, only two rakes of first-generation Vande Bharat express trains are operational, on the New Delhi-Katra and the New Delhi-Varanasi routes. Since Vande Bharat trains are capable of running at speeds of 160 kmph on existing tracks, the government plans to run these trains on the Shatabdi and Rajdhani routes to reduce travel time.

The first two generations of the Vande Bharat trains only have a chair car seating format, while the third and fourth generations will have sleepers and are expected to cost around 15-20 percent more than the second-generation of Vande Bharat trains.

Why Vande Bharat?

Vande Bharat is a semi-high speed train with 16 self-propelled coaches — they do not require an engine. This is called a distributed traction power system, which is increasingly becoming the norm the world over for passenger operations. Distributed power enables higher acceleration and deceleration compared to loco-hauled trains, which take much longer to reach the top speed or to gradually come to a halt.

These trains will have improvements in terms of better seating, an anti-bacterial system in the AC, less noise, the ability to hit 160 km/h in 140 seconds, and other aspects.

Tender details

As part of the tender, the winning bidder/bidders would have to assemble 120 train sets at the Marathwada Rail Coach Factory in Latur and the remaining 80 trainsets at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai.

The tender will also include a clause for maintenance and a comprehensive annual maintenance contract for the trains for a period of 35 years.

Indian Railways has till now awarded contracts for 102 Vande Bharat trains, with deliveries scheduled to be completed by June 2024. Furthermore, in April 2022, the national rail carrier had invited bids for 200 third-generation Vande Bharat trains.

At the moment, Indian Railways is scheduled to take delivery of around six second-generation Vande Bharat trains of 16 cars each every quarter from Hyderabad-based Medha Servo Drives. The deliveries will begin in August.