A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the indigenously built Vande Bharat Express to Varanasi from New Delhi, the train made an unscheduled stop for over three hours on Saturday near Tundla in Uttar Pradesh. The train came to a halt 18 km ahead of Tundla station after it ran over some livestock around 5.30 am near Chamraula station, railway officials told news agency IANS.
According to a report in the Indian Express, the last few coaches of the Train 18 began to make a rattling noise which is when the speed of the train was decreased. The report adds that smoke was detected and a foul smell was coming out of one of the last four coaches. The power went out in all the coaches and later the train was restarted at 10 kmph.
Indian Express reporter Avishek Dastidar was onboard the train when the incident took place. Dastidar stated that the brakes in one of the last coaches had jammed and engineers onboard were in touch with senior officials to figure out the next course of action. The train resumed its onward journey for Delhi at around 8.15 am.
Wheels skid and breaks jammed in driver trailing coach, voltage interruptions resulted in no power in four coaches. Railwayman inspecting, figuring out how to fix Vande Bharat Express 15 km from Tundla @IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/6aZnGuaFbX
— Avishek Dastidar (@avishekgd) February 16, 2019
This, however, was not a scheduled commercial run of the train. The train was being brought from Varanasi to New Delhi for the commercial run which is scheduled for Sunday, February 17.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday had flagged off the indigenous Train 18, renamed Vande Bharat Express, from the New Delhi railway station to his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi in the backdrop of the terror attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir which killed 45 troopers. The 16-coach train will have two executive compartments with 52 seats each and trailer coaches with 78 seats each. The train will clock 160 km per hour - the fastest on the Indian rail network.
For travelling between New Delhi and Varanasi by Train 18, the passengers will have to shell out 30-40 per cent higher fare than they do for Shatabdi Express, Railway Ministry officials had said. A New Delhi-Varanasi journey by the indigenously built high-speed train would cost Rs 3,310 and Rs 1,760 for Executive Class (EC) and Chair Car (CC), respectively, inclusive of taxes.
With IANS inputs