Lucknow Vande Bharat Out With ‘Flat Tyre’, Passengers Shifted To Shatabdi Train

The newly launched semi-high-speed train Vande Bharat Express, in headlines for the last three days for hitting cattle, today hit a snag in the wheels because of jammed bearings. While the earlier accidents with cattle were with the train on the Gandhinagar-Mumbai route, this hiccup was on the one running the New Delhi-Varanasi route. “The Varanasi Vande Bharat (Train number 22436) suffered a failure due to bearing defect in Traction Motor of C8 coach between Dankaur and Wair stations of North Central Railway,” officials said.

The bearing jam was fixed, however, due to a “flat tyre”, passengers had to be shifted to a Shatabdi train, rushed in from New Delhi, at Khurja station. In Gujarat, the Gandhinagar-Mumbai train struck a cow on Friday, only one day after it struck a herd of buffaloes. The train’s front bumper was slightly dented, but yesterday it had to be stopped for ten minutes.

In the incident on Thursday, the train’s “nose” cone came off and it struck four buffaloes. After an eight-minute break, it resumed since the nose, a fibre-reinforced plastic bumper, is not crucial to the vehicle’s operation. Animals perished.

Such incidents with livestock are unavoidable, according to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and “this has been borne in mind while building the train.” Its front nose can be completely replaced, the minister stated.

Last month, the newly inaugurated train was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who rode it from Gandhinagar to Kalupur station in Ahmedabad.

According to the railways, the train offers superior riding comfort than existing trains and can reach 160 km/h in just over two minutes.

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