Prime Minister Modi will inaugurate nine Vande Bharat trains on September 24

Kerala and Odisha are gearing up to welcome their second Vande Bharat Express trains in the near future. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to officially inaugurate these trains on September 24. Alongside these two trains, the Prime Minister is set to launch seven additional new routes for the Vande Bharat Express on the same day. Remarkably, one of these routes will feature a distinctive new orange color scheme. Currently, there are a total of 25 operational routes for the Vande Bharat Express in the country. With the introduction of these nine new routes, the total count will expand to 34 routes, ensuring comprehensive coverage across the nation.

In terms of scheduling, Kerala's second Vande Bharat Express will commence its journey from Kasargod at 7 a.m., reaching the state capital at 3.05 p.m. On its return journey later that day, it will depart at 4.05 p.m. from the capital and arrive back in Kasargod at 11.55 p.m. This train will sport an eye-catching orange-white livery.

On the other hand, the Vande Bharat Express departing from Puri will leave at 5 a.m., arriving in Bhubaneswar at 6.05 a.m., and finally reaching its destination, Rourkela, at 12.45 p.m. The return journey from Rourkela will commence at 2.10 p.m., with the train arriving in Puri at 9.40 p.m., covering the distance in just 7.5 hours. Across all nine of these newly inaugurated routes, Indian Railways will operate 8-coach Vande Bharat Express trains.

The new routes that will be launched include Udaipur-Jaipur, Ranchi-Howrah, Tirunelveli-Chennai, Patna-Howrah, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, and Vijayawada-Chennai. Currently, India has 25 Vande Bharat Express trains running, covering a total of 50 routes (25 in each direction). These are distributed among various railway zones, including Northern, Southern, Central, Western, West Central, North Western, South East Central, Eastern, East Coast, South Central, South Eastern, Northeast Frontier, East Central, South Western, and North Eastern Railway Zones.