Prime minister Narendra Modi Friday flagged off two Vande Bharat trains – Mumbai-Solapur and Mumbai-Shirdi – and took a ride on one of the semi high-speed expresses. A video shared by news agency ANI showed Modi interacting with school children on the train; one student sang a song, after which the prime minister said ‘waah’ and praised her.
The inauguration ceremony was in Mumbai with railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Maharashtra chief minister and his deputy, Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis, in attendance.
The Mumbai-Solapur Vande Bharat will cover 455 km in six hours and 30 minutes – nearly one hour quicker than current rains. The Mumbai-Sainagar Shirdi Vande Bharat will take five hours and 25 minutes to cover the 343 km distance from the state capital to the temple town.
The Mumbai-Solapur is India’s ninth Vande Bharat train and the one to Sainagar Shirdi the tenth. The latter will also offer greater connectivity for pilgrims travelling to to Akkalkot, Tuljapur, Pandharpur and Alandi, which is near Pune.
At the inauguration ceremony Vaishnaw said work had also begun to make Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus an ‘international-level’ facility.
