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Indian Railways to Add Extra Coaches on Vande Bharat Trains On These Seven Routes
Indian Railways will increase capacity on seven Vande Bharat routes after consistently recording high demand on these trains. The Railway Board, according to a Live Mint report, has cleared the addition of coaches on select corridors where demand has far exceeded the available seats in recent months.
Across India, the Railways runs 144 Vande Bharat services. Passenger occupancy touched 102.01 per cent in fiscal year 2024-25 and climbed further to 105.03 per cent by June 2025. The figures show more tickets sold than available seats, which is the cause for the expansion for some of the most in-demand trains.
Three routes already operating with 16-coach Vande Bharat sets will move to 20-coach units. These are Mangaluru Central-Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad-Tirupati, and Chennai Egmore-Tirunelveli. Each has maintained heavy bookings over time, prompting four-coach upgrades to reduce the daily squeeze on passengers.
Four other routes currently using 8-coach trains will see the coach count doubled to 16 coaches. These are Madurai-Bengaluru Cantt, Deoghar-Varanasi, Howrah-Rourkela, and Indore-Nagpur. The decision follows a review of occupancy and infrastructure feasibility up to July 31, 2025.
Parallel to this coach expansion for 7 trains, Vande Bharat Sleeper production is underway. Ten sleeper rakes are currently being built. The Integral Coach Factory in Chennai has been tasked with building around 50 more rakes, while private technology partners will supply another 200.
Meanwhile, Bikaner will soon join the Vande Bharat map. A new service linking Bikaner with Delhi is expected to begin running in mid-September.
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