Four more coaches to Secunderabad - Visakhapatnam Vande Bharat train from January 11; 188 special trains for Sankranti

South Central Railway increases secunderabad- visakhapatnam Vande Bharat train coaches for Sankranti-Pongal festival season, adds special trains to meet demand.

South Central Railway (SCR) has decided to increase the number of coaches of the Vande Bharat train - starting from Secunderabad in the afternoon to reach Visakhapatnam by late night - to 20 coaches from the current 16 coaches in view of the heavy demand and the current ‘Sankranti-Pongal’ festival season from Saturday (January 11, 2025).

“This is not just for the festival season, but will continue thereafter too because of the high patronage”, informed Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Ch. Sridhar on Friday (January 10, 2025). The Visakhapatnam - Secunderabad – Visakhapatnam Vande Bharat Express Train, which was flagged-off on January 15 last year by Prime Minister Modi with 16 coaches and 1,128 passenger capacity, will now have 1,414 passenger capacity with 18 chair cars (1024 seats) and two executive class coaches (104 seats) from Saturday (January 11, 2025).

The official also disclosed that the zonal railways will also be running as many as 188 special trains, most of them towards Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh for the next fortnight at least. This is, at least, 42 more special trains when compared to the number of special trains ran during the festival period last year to, more or less, the same destinations last year.

Apart from these, another high number of 366 trains will be passing through the SCR zone from other places and these are also 42 more when compared to the 324 trains available last year. “We have trains starting from all terminal stations of Nampally, Secunderabad, Kacheguda, Lingampally and Cherlapalli towards destinations like Cuttack, Berhampur, Akola, Nanded, Bengaluru, Chennai and others. We have also augmented 15 regular trains with extra one or two coaches. It will go on till January 24,” he explained.

Another interesting facet of this year’s passenger trains operations is that ‘Jan Sadharan’ – total train consisting of only 22 unreserved general coaches including sleepers - are being pressed into service after a considerable gap for the benefit of those who cannot afford the reserved coaches. These trains are to run between new Cherlapalli terminal station and Visakhapatnam.

The regular marquee trains like the Godavari Express and others express trains, which usually stick to their respective schedules, are already booked to the full for the several days ahead. The tickets booking and waiting lists too have been stopped because of the incessant demand for these trains.