The Railway Board has granted approval for the first 16-coach Vande Bharat chair car manufactured by the Rail Coach Factory (RCF) in Kapurthala to operate at up to 160 kmph, PTI reported. All Vande Bharat chair cars in service so far were built by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai; the Kapurthala rake, which uses an Alstom propulsion system, is the first from RCF.

Source: PTI

The trainset completed a supervised high-speed trial at 180 kmph on the Mathura-Nagda section on October 8 under the Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety, HelloRail reported. Even with the 160 kmph approval, the rake cannot run beyond 130 kmph for now because of speed restrictions the Board applies across the network, officials said.

Source: HelloRail

160 kmphApproved operating speed
180 kmphSpeed reached in Oct 8 trial
130 kmphPractical cap under current network limits
16 coachesSize of the RCF-built chair car rake

The approval, in the Board's letter dated October 23, comes with a list of deficiencies to rectify. They include poor functioning of the Driver Display Unit touchscreen, concerns over the electrical fault-tracing system, and an unsecured protective cover for the fire extinguisher, PTI reported.

The Board also noted that the Miniature Circuit Breakers in the Electrical Control Cabinets are single-pole instead of the double-pole units used in earlier Vande Bharat versions, which can make fault tracing harder. It directed that this be corrected in this rake at the earliest and that all future rakes be turned out with double-pole MCBs, according to the PTI report.