After a pause of 170 days when services were shut owing to nationwide lockdown because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Indian Railways resumed operating Vande Bharat Express.
It started operations of 80 (40 pairs) additional trains from September 12. The list of the 80 trains made public earlier includes India’s first semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express train as well. Currently, only New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express train has been started for service.
The train will run for five days a week excluding Mondays and Thursdays. The first day after the resumption of the train remained half-hearted with just 2% passenger bookings. The train numbered 02435 which will leave Varanasi at 3 pm for New Delhi and 02436 will leave New Delhi at 6 am for Varanasi.
The second Vande Bharat Express train which operates between New Delhi and Katra however remains suspended.
According to the data, three amongst the 80 special trains that have begun in the area with more demand and whose tickets are being waitlisted, have managed to earn only 50 percent occupancy on the first day of booking.
The tickets for the 15 pairs of train running on the Rajdhani routes from May 12 and 100 since June 1 were all booked within hours of its booking announcement by the railways.
Indian Railways last week announced that it will be operating 40 pairs of new passenger trains in addition to that of the 230 trains that had resumed earlier. The booking for these 80 trains started on September 10 and started running from September 12 onwards.
All the special trains that have begun will be fully reserved trains.
