Due to poor occupancy on the route, Indian Railways has decided to operate the much-hyped Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bhart Express with eight coach configuration rake instead of the sixteen-coach configuration and temporarily replaced the semi-high speed train with Tejas Express from Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Secunderabad Tirupati Vande Bharat Express will get 16 coach rake configuration from the current eight coaches due to the higher demand on the route.
According to HT's sister publication Mint, the Bilaspur-Nagpur Vande Bharat Express had the lowest occupancy among the eight such trains in the country till January this fiscal with 55% occupancy rate.
Nagpur-Bilaspur Tejas Express rake will feature 11 coaches including 2 executive class coaches with 56 seats each, 7 chair cars with 78 seats each and two power cars. This arrangement will continue temporarily till the rake of Secunderabad - Tirupati Vande Bharat Express Train No. 20701 / 20702 is received, according to a statement by the South East Central Railway zone of Indian Railways.
The Bilaspur-Nagpur Vande Bharat Express was launched by prime minister Narendra Modi in December last year from the Nagpur railway station. The travel time from Nagpur to Bilaspur was aimed to reduce to five hours and thirty minutes from seven-eight hours.
{{/usCountry}}The Bilaspur-Nagpur Vande Bharat Express was launched by prime minister Narendra Modi in December last year from the Nagpur railway station. The travel time from Nagpur to Bilaspur was aimed to reduce to five hours and thirty minutes from seven-eight hours.
{{/usCountry}}However, due to high-cost fares, the occupancy was not satisfactory. The fare for the executive class from Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express was ₹2,045 while that of the Chair Car was ₹1,075.
The Tejas Express was launched in 2017 as India’s first corporate train, operated entirely by IRCTC, a subsidiary of the Indian Railways. It was first launched in 2017 on the Umbai to Goa route by the then Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu.