The Ministry of Railways is readying a roadmap to start export of the indigenously manufactured Vande Bharat trains by 2025-26, a senior railways official said on Friday.
The Ministry is also working to increase production of these trains as well as introduce newer versions with sleeper coaches.
“The ecosystem to export trains have to be created over the next two to three years. We are on track to manufacture 475 Vande Bharat trains in the next three years and once they run successfully on our tracks ... we will have proof of technology. There will be confidence in global markets about our product. The Vande Bharat trains meet all international standards,” the official said.
The railways expects to cumulatively run the 75 new Vande Bharat trains for 10 to 12 lakh kilometres before aggressively pursuing the export markets.
It is also building ‘standard gauge’ tracks, which are used outside India, in Rajasthan to test the trains which will be exported, as trains in India run on broad-gauge tracks. The tracks are expected to be ready by January 2024.
The sleeper version of the Vande Bharat trains will be ready by the first quarter of (January-March) 2024 and will be manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, the official said.
Tilting trains
Further, the railways, in association with global firms, is working to develop ‘tilting trains’ — which can run on curved tracks without slowing down — in India by 2025-26. At least 100 of the 400 Vande Bharat trains to be manufactured by 2025 will use this technology.
“We will have tilting trains in the country. We will tie up with a technology partner for this. We will have this technology in 100 Vande Bharat trains over the next two or three years,” the official said, adding that such trains are now operational in 11 countries — Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, the UK, Switzerland, China, Germany and Romania.
