[sukhbirST]

Thanks for the review, I was having second thoughts about EC and did not want to peep inside during my recent to and fro trip from Delhi to katra by Vande bharat. The return train does not get much time to clean the bad odour of washrooms, as most are returning same day. Only thing is, the public is not keeping up pace with the new trains.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by vigsom

Experiencing Executive Class

I will let the pictures do the talking

Attachment 2530220
Spectrawide footrest

Whether they travel super luxury class paying more than air fare or in third class unreserved compartment without a ticket, Indians will never leave this habit of placing their feet on the seat opposite. This is a great leveller for all Indians of all income groups, the only difference being local slang or fake English accent!

[mmxylorider]

I believe these train sets are an indicator of what IR (BR?) is aspiring towards. A world class experience. Clearly - focus on station renovation/remodeling, amenities at stations, options for different pockets, soft experience in the trains are also leading up to this end goal. The biggest piece which also is the most time consuming is the track infrastructure. Upgrading the tracks to support high speeds, signaling equipment, welding the track lengths to reduce the 'click clack' will take time.

Personally it seems like Tata AI - IR and MoRTH have a race going on as to who gets to show case the most drastic improvement in change and experience.

Can't wait to see how this all looks like 5 years down the line.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

And of course trains consume way way less fuel and therefore create way less pollution than a airliner. Good for the planet in everyway....For distances shorter than 400 kms as the crow flies speed should not matter.

Originally Posted by vigsom

True Sir. I hope the "sustainability" champions of various companies understand the power of point #2 above and encourage train travel over air, especially for the 400km type sectors.

One critical change that the railways must do is to provide a stop for VB trains at the peripheral stations of big metro cities. For e.g. at KR Puram or Whitefield in Blr, Tambaram(Chennai), Thane/Borivli (Mumbai). Intra city travel to the originating stations is becoming much more painful, and more polluting, than inter city travel. VB trains are designed for fast acceleration and a couple of minutes stop is not going to cause undue delays. In fact, I observed in a recent travel that VB could cover Blr - Chn Central outer signal in less than 4 hours and then it stopped for 10-15 minutes at the outer for paltform clearance.

The Japanese Tokaido shinkansen stops at Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama stations before/after Tokyo main station. This is more sustainable than ask everyone to travel to City station.

[maddy42]

Great review and right on while talking about the food served. We can avoid the junk with some fruit instead in my view.

Coming to the point of speed - I have noticed work on increasing track work to up the speed on the blr chn route after the introduction of this train. This can benefit all the other trains on this network.

We are as good as the passengers we service. My parents were on the chennai - mysore leg and had a horrendous experience as some mothers thought it was wise to make their little children sit on the table and have a sangeetha competition at the loudest voice in a packed train. Can we atleast be aware of our surroundings?

Why do we have to keep our leg on the chair, would we even do it in our own homes?

We complain when facilities are bad but ruin it when it is provided.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

One critical change that the railways must do is to provide a stop for VB trains at the peripheral stations of big metro cities. For e.g. at KR Puram or Whitefield in Blr, Tambaram(Chennai), Thane/Borivli (Mumbai). Intra city travel to the originating stations is becoming much more painful, and more polluting, than inter city travel. VB trains are designed for fast acceleration and a couple of minutes stop is not going to cause undue delays. In fact, I observed in a recent travel that VB could cover Blr - Chn Central outer signal in less than 4 hours and then it stopped for 10-15 minutes at the outer for paltform.

True. When Tejas express was launched to Madurai, it didn't have stop at Tambaram and it had lesser than optimum patronage. There were several representations made and finally stop was added as experimental basis and patronage improved, so it got extended. This time when Tirunelveli VB is launched they have given a stop at Tambaram from Day 1

For MAS-SBC, I beleive timing is still a problem with VB and Shatabdhi starting within 10 mins at 5.50 and 6 AM. Hope they will push one out by at least 30 mins as it is a little bit of challenge to reach Chennai Central from Suburbs so early in the morning. I sorely missed KR Puram stop for Shatabdhi and have taken Double decker mainly for it as I can catch one of the volvos directly to office in ORR.

More than stoppage time, I guess biggest issue is platform availability in busy times like mornings. We need to upgrade satellite stations to be equal to main terminals by having them as starting and terminal stations.

[airbus]

Originally Posted by GoBabyGo

If given an opportunity, I would suspend train service for 6 months and completely change the tracks with the help of Japan or China or who so ever can do it in 6 months to ensure that our rail tracks are capable to handle 250kmph maximum speed easily.

Last month I travelled by a few trains. I checked speed of these trains with my Radarbot app.

New Delhi - Dehradun Shatabdi Express: Max speed was 120 kmph.

Dehradun - Anand Vihar (Delhi) Vande Bharat Express: Max speed was 120 kmph.

Hazrat Nizamuddin - Agra Cantonment Gatimaan Express: Max speed was 160 kmph.

Later I checked on the Internet and found that Gatimaan Express is still the fastest train in India.

[Fx14]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

One critical change that the railways must do is to provide a stop for VB trains at the peripheral stations of big metro cities. For e.g. at KR Puram or Whitefield in Blr, Tambaram(Chennai), Thane/Borivli (Mumbai).

For Mumbai, they are already having such multiple halts :
1. On WR - MUMBAI CENTRAL / BORIVALI
2. On CR - CSTM / DADAR / THANE

[GoBabyGo]

Originally Posted by airbus

Last month I travelled by a few trains. I checked speed of these trains with my Radarbot app.

New Delhi - Dehradun Shatabdi Express: Max speed was 120 kmph.

Dehradun - Anand Vihar (Delhi) Vande Bharat Express: Max speed was 120 kmph.

Hazrat Nizamuddin - Agra Cantonment Gatimaan Express: Max speed was 160 kmph.

Later I checked on the Internet and found that Gatimaan Express is still the fastest train in India.

Hi, It is not about maximum speed of say 120 Or 130kmph, it is about what maximum speed our existing ralway tracks can handle. We have very high population dependent on Indian Railways. I would ideally prefer to improve the track quality so that they can easily handle 250kmph speed and if possible increase number of tracks so that more trains can run to cater to the requirement of travellers.

Our Vande Bharat, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Gatiman, AC Super fast trains are good trains and if we have better railway tracks these trains can run 170-180kmph average speed, which is more than sufficient for 500km to 2000 km journey.

[gauravdgr8]

There are some things related to perception too. Vande Bharat has been able to break that. There was a perception that Indian railways is like that, which is slowly changing and that's for the good. Compared to Shatabdi trains, Vande Bharat is more comfortable, has better NVH levels, better upkeep and service.

[darthvader001]

Whether they travel super luxury class paying more than air fare or in third class unreserved compartment without a ticket, Indians will never leave this habit of placing their feet on the seat opposite. This is a great leveller for all Indians of all income groups, the only difference being local slang or fake English accent!

Why generalize Indians here? I've seen this habit of people in the USA as well. Many people there (in US) do this in the movie theatres too.
This is in general a human habit/tendency to stretch and not specific to India. Perhaps, you never saw other country people and think only Indians have such habits.

[da3mn]

Today, I traveled in the VB train from Chennai to Mysore. We opted for Executive Class, hoping that the kids would enjoy the rotating seats and facing the windows, and they absolutely loved it. The NVH was excellent, and this is the first time I can remember the train arriving ahead of schedule

Executive Class is definitely worth the extra money when traveling with young children. For breakfast, we were served idli, vada, coconut chutney, sambar, peanut chikki, Haldiram chat mixture, a Tropicana mixed fruit tetra pack, and curd. Although the food was great, it would have been better if snacks, breakfast, and tea were served on demand, though I understand it might be challenging to manage.

Unfortunately, the AC was broken in my coach, and we were sweating throughout the journey. We plan to return to Chennai on Monday in CC and will try to capture a couple of photos this time around.

[thanixravindran]

A bit underwhelming experience with VB EC class -

Have to travel to Tirunelveli within a weeks time. Generally this is a busy route and as expected no tickets in regular trains were available but surprisingly wife saw tickets on Chennai - Nagercoil special VB and remembering this thread booked TBM - TEN Executive Class as we have not travelled in VB since its launch. Fare is close to 3000 per person almost same like regular VB. However there is a catch that there is no catering included in the fare. So essentially it is around 300+ expensive than regular VB. This may be the reason for ticket availability till last minute.

We have to buy the Idli, vada, Ponga, tea like regular trains from the sellers which I generally avoid due to my past 'gut' wrenching experiences.

Train timing is on dot (5.40 AM in TBM and 12.47 PM in TEN) and it almost maintains 110 Km/hr throughout the journey.

Seat color is not eye pleasing in anyway but can cover the dirt well.

Shatabdhi style footrests are back as no three stage broad footrest is available.

Adjustable neck support is gone and replaced with fixed Rexin seat neck cover. Neck support was uncomfortable due to height and recline angle. Better to sit straight.

Tray design has changed and is smaller with weird angle away from seat when unfolded. I used it as laptop table. Nice to have the mains and USB charging ports to charge both laptop and mobile at same time.

And the broken window exactly near my seat sank our heart. Wife didn't wanted to rotate the seat to see the broken window. I don't know what people get by destroying public property. Hope they were identified and taken to task.

VB WiFI is working but it is only for Infotainment connection and not for general use. One has to
login to the given website to access the collection. Saw only few Hindi titles available from 1960s and nothing else. Some one has done a check box implementation

I don't know my not so great experience is because it is a limited time special train but reaching Tirunelveli in 7 hours at lunch time (All the frustration went off with Hotel Janakiram meals after getting down, ha ha) is a huge time saver that is worth the money. Else I have to drive all the way as regular VB is timed to cater the opposite direction traveller's to Chennai and return.

[itwasntme]

Visuals of the upgraded VB being launched today:
https://twitter.com/ANINewsUP/status...0%2Fframe.html

[SR-71]

There exterior color scheme is pleasing compared to the older ones, makes it look like the DB's ICE trains :-) They could have used the opportunity to improve the interior aesthetics too, seat colors for example. I am hoping they have sorted out the rough edges with respect to fit and finish, a perennial gripe in IR coaches.