Inaugural run: Children, teachers among passengers of Ayodhya-Dharbhanga Amrit Bharat Exp

Ayodhya (UP), Dec 30 (PTI) Nearly 1,200 “souvenir pass” holders, including schoolchildren and teachers, were passengers for the inaugural run of the Ayodhya-Darbhanga Amrit Bharat Express flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

The passes were issued by the Northern Railway free of cost.

The train was among two Amrit Bharat and six Vande Bharat trains flagged off by the prime minister, most of them virtually, from the Ayodhya Dham Junction at 12:15 pm.

Earlier in the day, Modi had inaugurated the redeveloped railway station which was completed at a cost of Rs 241 crore.

Most of the students on board the Ayodhya-Darbhanga Amrit Bharat Express said that they travelled from Gorakhpur to here to be part of the inaugural run of the train.

“We woke up at 3 am, took a train at 5 am from Gorakhpur to Ayodhya, and now we are travelling back to Gorakhpur,” said an excited student.

Another student said that “it is a new train so everything is neat and clean, and I saw a mobile-holder and foot-operated water tap in the toilet”. The student added that the journey was less jerky as compared to the train in which they had come to Ayodhya in the morning.

Besides schoolchildren, there were railway employees, journalists and security personnel on board the train.

“Out of 4,000 students, 48 of us were selected based on our academic performance and communication skill for the inaugural trip,” 17-year-old Aditya Kasaudhan, a student of the Maharana Pratap Inter College, Civil Lines Gorakhpur, said.

The second Amrit Bharat Express to be flagged off will travel between Malda town and the Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminus (Bengaluru).

The Vande Bharat trains flagged off included the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-New Delhi Vande Bharat Express, the Amritsar-Delhi Vande Bharat Express, the Coimbatore-Bangalore Cantt Vande Bharat Express, the Mangalore-Madgaon Vande Bharat Express, the Jalna-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express and the Ayodhya-Anand Vihar Terminal Vande Bharat Express.

The Indian Railways had said Amrit Bharat trains can run at a maximum speed of 130 kmph.

“The Amrit Bharat trains have a special type of coupler called semi-permanent coupler which negates the jerk effect. It is safer in terms of operation of the train as well,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had recently said.

According to a railway circular, the trains have other significant features such as horizontal sliding windows, dust-sealed wider gangways, an aerosol-based fire suppression system in toilets and electrical cubicles, an emergency disaster management light, floor guide fluorescent strips, bench-type design for LWS coaches, segregation of reserved and unreserved coaches with sliding doors.

As the trains’ fare is 15-17 per cent higher than the mail and express trains being currently run, railway officials travelling in the train argued that the kind of facilities it offers, the fare increase is negligent.

The Ayodhya-Darbhanga Amrit Bharat Express will officially start operations from January 1 and run twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays — with a total carrying capacity of 1,834 passengers in two classes — sleeper and second.

The railway minister had earlier said after the flagging off the train, the railway would conduct a general run of the train for four to five months to see if it causes any technical challenges.

“After that 20 to 30 trains of this model will be made every month. We did the same thing with Vande Bharat trains. We ran the train for one year and then made improvements while enhancing productivity,” Vaishnaw had said.

The trains to be launched subsequently will have general class configuration going up to AC-II.