Vande Bharath Express between Mangaluru Central -Madgaon (Goa) to Chug Off on 30 Dec at 11 am, and Speaker U T Khader will do the honours
Mangaluru: The much-awaited Vande Bharath Express scheduled between Mangaluru Central Railway Station and Madgaon Station will be launched on 30 December 2023 at 11 am. It is learnt that via video conference, six such trains will be flagged off from various railway stations in the Country, starting from 10 am. However, from Mangaluiru, the launching time of Vande Bharath Express is scheduled for 11 am where Speaker U T Khader will do the flagging off.
After flag Off the train will make inaugural ceremony stops at Surathkal, Mulky, Udupi and a few other stations before reaching Madgaon. It is learnt that MP Nalin Kumar Kateel with a few other politicians will travel on this inaugural train. On the occasion, the newly redeveloped platforms No. 4 and 5 will also be inaugurated.
During the trial run on Tuesday, 26 December at 8:30 am from Mangaluru Central the Vande Bharat Express train took nearly four hours to cover a distance of 321 kilometres between Mangaluru Central and Madgaon Junction. The regular service of this train, along with the Vande Bharat services on five other routes in the country. The train on the trial run departed from Platform No. 1 at Mangaluru Central. It had a brief stop at Udupi station and reached Madgaon Junction at 12:23 p.m. In return, the train left Madgaon Junction at 12:53 p.m. It stopped at Karwar and reached Mangaluru Central at 4:45 p.m.
The rake of the Vande Bharat train for the trial run arrived at Platform No. 3 of Mangaluru Central on Monday evening. It was brought to Platform No. 1 on Tuesday morning from where the trial run started. Nalin Kumar Kateel, MP, D. Vedavyasa Kamath, Mangaluru City South MLA, and a few councillors spent a few minutes in a coach of the train before it departed from Mangaluru Central. Rail fans clicked photographs and took videos of the movement of the train on the route and shared them on social media.
The Southern Railway, Palakkad Division, posted on its official account on X the photograph taken by one Ronak D’Sa with the caption “Witness a captivating moment as the Mangaluru Central- Madgaon Junction Vande Bharath Express blaze the tracks on its trial run today, near Jokatte Railway station. Join us on this exhilarating journey towards a faster and more connected future.” Ronak D’Sa, a third-year BBA student of St Aloysius College (SAC), Mangaluru, had attracted the attention of the Union railway ministry through exquisite photography of trains that he took in various picturesque places of the country. The video and photograph by rail fan Vishal Shenoy from Udupi of the train moving across the Swarna River bridge in Udupi was widely circulated on social media.