Revolutionizing Rail Travel: Kerala’s First Vande Bharat Express Begins Operations
The inaugural Vande Bharat Express for Kerala is set to depart from Thiruvananthapuram on April 25 after being flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Kasargod are the 11 districts that the Vande Bharat train would pass through. Sunday morning saw the opening of reservations.
The Thiruvananthapuram Central-Kasaragod corridor and back will be served by the inaugural Vande Bharat Express train to run in Kerala, trains 20634 and 20633, respectively. The chair vehicle has 914 seats in total, and the executive chair car has 86 seats. Every day, excluding Thursdays, the first Vande Bharat Express train from Kerala will run. On April 26 the train will start running regularly on the Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram line as well as the Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod route corridor on April 28.
It will take 8 hours 5 minutes to travel from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod. The train will depart from Thiruvananthapuram at 5.20 am and reach Kasaragod at 1.25 pm. It will depart from Kasaragod at 2.30 pm.
Tickets can be purchased via the IRCTC website, mobile app, or at train station reservation counters. Bookings began on Sunday at 8 a.m. According to rumours, the tickets are already sold out. Tickets for the executive chair car are not available for the next five days.The Vande Bharat will travel from Trivandrum Central to Kasaragod in 8.05 hours, whereas the Rajdhani would travel the same trip in 8 hours and 59 minutes. In terms of pricing, Vande Bharat would cost Rs 2,880 in executive class and Rs 2,770 in first class.
The Rajdhani departs Trivandrum Central at 7.15 p.m. and arrives in Kasaragod at 4.14 a.m., while the Vande Bharat departs Trivandrum Central at 5.20 a.m. and arrives in Kasaragod at 1.25 pm. While Vande Bharat will be running all days of the week except Thursday, Rajdhani runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday only.
