The Bhubaneswar-Visakhapatnam-Bhubaneswar Vande Bharat Express commenced its operations today (Sunday) in Odisha. According to official reports, the train departed from Bhubaneswar at 5.15 am and is scheduled to depart from Visakhapatnam at 3.30 pm. Along the journey between Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam, the Vande Bharat Express will make stopovers at Khurda Road, Balugaon, Berhampur, Ichhapuram, Srikakulam Road, and Vizianagaram.
This marks the inauguration of Odisha’s third Vande Bharat Express, which was virtually flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 12. Previously, the first Vande Bharat commenced operations between Puri and Howrah in May 2023, followed by the second on the Puri-Rourkela route in September 2023.
Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated 10 new Vande Bharat Express trains across various routes in the country from Ahmedabad. He is set to visit Ahmedabad to inaugurate and officially open numerous railway and petrochemical projects valued at over 1,06,000 crore, significantly enhancing railway infrastructure and chemical industry connections, as reported by ANI.
The newly inaugurated routes include: Ranchi-Varanasi, New Jalpaiguri-Patna, Patna-Lucknow, Lucknow-Dehradun, Puri-Visakhapatnam, Kalaburagi-Bengaluru, Ahmedabad-Mumbai, Khajuraho-Delhi, Mysuru-Chennai, and Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam.
Additionally, the Prime Minister extended the routes of four existing Vande Bharat trains: Ahmedabad-Jamnagar Vande Bharat now extends till Dwarka, Ajmer-Delhi Sarai Rohilla Vande Bharat till Chandigarh, Gorakhpur-Lucknow Vande Bharat till Prayagraj, and Thiruvananthapuram-Kasargod Vande Bharat till Mangaluru. Two new passenger trains between Asansol and Hatia, and Tirupati and Kollam stations were also inaugurated.