9 more Vande Bharat sleeper trains coming by Dec 2025

Apart from 16-car trains, the Indian Railways is also aiming to manufacture 24-car Vande Bharat sleeper trains. The contract was given to two leading Indian manufacturers Medha and Alstom, companies based in Hyderabad, for propulsion electrics. Indian Railways has ordered a total of 50 rakes for the 24-car sleeper Vande Bharat train, which are run on propulsion electrics, a technology in which a train is propelled by electricity. Medha has agreed on delivering 33 rakes while Alstom will make 17 rakes within the course of two years. Hence, leading to a full-scale production of 24-car sleeper trains by the year 2026-27.

On January 15, this year, the Research Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO) successfully concluded testing of the first 16-car Vande Bharat sleeper train, which covered 540 kilometers on the Mumbai–Ahmedabad route. The train was brought to Kota Division to be tested for short distance runs of 30–40 km at a high speed of 180 km/h after the ICF finished producing it on December 17 of last year.

A certificate will be provided analyzing the trail runs by the Research Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO) and the train's top speed will be evaluated by the railway safety commissioner before the first Vande Bharat Sleeper Train in India is operationalized.

With a total capacity of 1128 passengers. 16-car Vande Bharat sleeper trains will have three classes; AC First Class, AC 2-Tier, and AC 3-Tier respectively. There is a fire barrier wall, crash buffers, and deformation tubes, along with features like Wi-Fi on board, cushioned sleepers, and automatic doors.

Indian Railways has already inked two significant agreements with private companies both domestically and abroad for the provision of Vande Bharat Sleeper trains. A partnership between state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd (TRSL) was granted the contract in June 2023 to manufacture 80 Vande Bharat sleeper trains at a cost of Rs. 24,000 crores.

Similarly, Indian Railways and Kinet Railway Solutions Limited, an Indo-Russian joint venture, sealed a contract on September 27, 2023, to produce Vande Bharat Sleeper trains. Transmash Holding, the biggest rolling stock manufacturer in Russia, formed a partnership to create this Indo-Russian special purpose vehicle (SPV).