Nagpur: The Vande Bharat Express will start plying in the Nagpur-Pune and Nagpur-Mumbai route in the coming months as Vinayak Garg, the newly appointed DRM of Nagpur, informed that a proposal in this regard has been submitted to the Railway Board by the Nagpur Board of Central Railway.
Currently, three Vande Bharats are in service from Nagpur, namely Nagpur-Secunderabad, Nagpur-Indore and Nagpur Bhopal. Two new Vande Bharat Expresses will be added to the existing fleet.
The number of passengers travelling on both the Nagpur-Mumbai and Nagpur-Pune routes is significant. However, since the number of trains is limited, a waiting list was also prepared three months ago as the needy passengers often shell out money in advance and choose private buses as an alternative. There has been a demand from passengers for new trains on the Nagpur-Mumbai and Nagpur-Pune routes.
Accordingly, the Nagpur Division of the Central Railway submitted a proposal to the Railway Board to add the Vande Bharat Express to this route with 10 to 15 hours of travel time.
Mails take 16 hours to cover the Nagpur-Mumbai journey, while the superfast trains take 12 to 13 hours and Duronto Express reaches Mumbai in 11 to 12 hours.
The addition of Vande Bharat will reduce the journey time for Nagpur to Mumbai to 10 hours and Nagpur to Pune to three hours. Approximately 6,000 daily passengers commute on the Nagpur-Pune route.
Currently, the Nagpur-Pune Superfast Express and Garib Rath Express run from Nagpur thrice a week while the Humsafar Express runs once a week, apart from the Azad Hind Express and Hatia-Pune Superfast Express. The situation is exacerbated during the festive rush.
Similarly, the Nagpur-Mumbai route has only two trains — Vidarbha Express for the Gondia-Mumbai route and Sevagram Express for the Nagpur-Mumbai route — making the waiting period longer for passengers.
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