Amrit Bharat Express rake remains unused for 4 months
Chennai: Several railway zones have rolled out Amrit Bharat Express trains on high-demand routes, but the rake allotted to
has remained unutilized since Feb when it was handed over by Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai.
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Official documents accessed through the Right to Information (RTI) Act confirm that the fully assembled superfast push-pull rake — designed for long-distance, non-AC travel — was allotted to Southern Railway as the first rake built at ICF. Since Feb, it has remained idle, reportedly stabled at locations within the zone such as Thiruvottiyur or Naidupeta, with no route finalized and no operational surveys completed.
Amrit Bharat Express services, already running on the Darbhanga-Delhi, Malda-Bengaluru and Mumbai-Saharsa routes, are designed to ease crowding on popular long-distance trains. Each train has 22 coaches, with the composition modified after parliamentary feedback to include more unreserved coaches.
So far, 10 rakes have been produced — eight at ICF and two at the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala — with allocations made to zones including northern, north central, eastern, eastern central, and central railway.
There is no clarity from Southern Railway on what plans it has. Popular trains such as Coromandel Express and Howrah Mail are running packed, especially with heavy migrant worker traffic. Amrit Bharat, envisioned as a more accessible alternative to Vande Bharat with non-AC coaches and quicker turnaround, could have eased the load on these overcrowded trains, say rail users.
Railway activist Dayanand Krishnan, who filed the RTI to bring the issue to light, said, "Instead of wasting the rake on a low-speed long route, it can be deployed on Tambaram–Tenkasi, where demand is high. The engines can run at 130kmph and two services a day are possible."
After a video surfaced recently showing the Amrit Bharat rake with Southern Railway markings travelling towards New Delhi, TOI contacted Southern Railway general manager R N Singh. He did not respond to queries.
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