The Indian Railways will hold the trial run of Vande Bharat Express,between Howrah and Puri on Friday. Later it will also conduct a second and third trial run of this train before its flagging off.
On the day of the first trial run, this train is scheduled to depart Howrah at 6.10am and reach Puri at 12.35pm on Friday. In a return direction, this train will leave Puri at 1.50pm and reach Howrah at 8.30pm on the same day.
It will have stoppages at six stations- Kharagpur, Bhadrak, Jajpur-Keonjhar Road, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Khurda- between Howrah and Puri. It will halt at stations for two minutes only.
AdvtSecond trial run will be held on April 30 from Howrah to Bhadrak and then Bhadrak to Howrah. Similarly, third trial run will be decided on May 1 after getting update from the Railway Board regarding inauguration of Vande Bharat Express rake, said the official sources.
Sources said the train is likely to chug through Odisha tracks in early May. For this, the Indian Railways will hold the trial runs. An empty rake of Vande Bharat Express went to Howrah on Wednesday.
People tried to catch a glimpse of the train passing Bhubaneswar and Cuttack stations on Wednesday. The Railways was bringing the empty train to Howrah from Vande Bharat’s factory Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai. Maintenance of this train was done at Santragachi station in West Bengal.
After the trial run is completed, the Vande Bharat will run between Howrah and Puri via Bhubaneswar. It will have less stoppages. Besides Bhubaneswar, many people come to Puri for Jagannath darshan and later visit Konark Sun Temple. Apart from these two places, they also visit beaches.
So far, East Coast Railway (ECoR) officials did not comment on its route chart, fares and specific dates of flagging off of the train.
In November last year, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had told the media about the running of Vande Bharat Express in Odisha this year. Many states have received Vande Bharat trains. Recently, prime minister Narendra Modi has flagged off Vande Bharat Express at Thiruvananthapuram.
