Gurgaon: The Sabarmati-Gurgaon Vande Bharat Special (09401) did what no Vande Bharat has ever done before. It travelled nearly 1,400 km in 28 hours in a single journey.
Passengers on the train were not cheering the feat though. Neither were officials of the Indian Railways who were left red-faced by this “record”. According to Mid-Day, this was the result of an operational blunder that turned into a source of embarrassment for the flagship train and the railways.
When the train left Sabarmati, passengers were expecting a 898-km long 15-hour journey along the Sabarmati-Ajmer-Jaipur-Gurgaon route. However, the train got stranded near Mehsana, around 60 km from its originating station.
No, there was nothing wrong with the train. The pantographs on top just fell short of the Over Head Equipment (OHE) and were unable to draw power.
The Vande Bharat rake allotted to ply on the Sabarmati-Ajmer-Jaipur-Gurgaon route lacked a high-reach pantograph, which is essential for trains along the high-rise OHE along this route.
Certain sections under Western Railway have elevated OHE to facilitate the movement for double-stack container trains that require additional vertical clearance. The usual overhead wires are around 5.5 metres above the rail, but in such sections, they are fitted at 7.45 metres. All trains that ply along these routes have to be fitted with high-reach pantographs, something the Vande Bharat did not have.
Finally, a decision was taken to divert the train via Ahmedabad–Udaipur–Kota–Jaipur–Mathura, a long and winding detour that added hundreds of kilometres and forced the semi-high-speed train to move at a snail’s pace through western and northern India. It was 28 hours before the train finally chugged into Gurgaon.
“There has to be accountability. How can a train without high-reach pantographs be sent along this route,” a senior railway official said.
Indian Today Digital claims that it made repeated attempts to get a reaction from the PRO of Western Railways’ Ahmedabad Division but to no avail.
