Mangaluru Central-Madgaon Vande Bharat Express which was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, received good response from passengers on the first day of its regular run on Sunday, December 31.
The train left Mangaluru Central at its scheduled time, 8.30 a.m., and reached Madgaon at 1.15 p.m. as per the schedule.
According to sources, the train was nearly half full with 200 seats in the chair car and 25 seats in the executive class occupied from Mangaluru Central itself. Many passengers arriving from Kerala early in the morning boarded the Vande Bharat for their onward journey towards Goa, they said. En route, many passengers boarded the train in Udupi too.
G. Karthik Kamath, who travelled the Vande Bharat on its first regular run, posted on X (formerly Twitter), “On board this train now...journey has been exciting and comfortable.” After completing the journey, he again posted, “Overall, the train was on time and reached the destination without any delay. It’s clean and most of the time is running at 120 kmph. Food selected was ‘No food’ during booking of the ticket and hence not going to comment. However, service to passengers was on time.”
Mr. Kamath said, “VB had to stay in Bhatkal and another station around 15 minutes each for another train crossing. This distance [Mangaluru Central-Madgaon] can be easily covered by VB in 3 to 3.5 hours provided there was double track in Konkan Railway route and overall route is strengthened.”
