More than 96% of seats booked on Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat train's maiden commercial run

Mumbai: More than 96 per cent of seats of the Vande Bharat Express were booked during its first commercial run between Mumbai and Gandhinagar stations on Saturday, a Western Railway (WR) official said.

The train was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Gandhinagar on Friday morning. He also travelled on it from Gandhinagar to Kalupur station in Ahmedabad. The booking for the new train had opened only on Thursday.

WR chief Public Relations Officer (PRO) Sumit Thakur said of the total of 1,123 seats on the Vande Bharat train, 1,086 seats were booked between Mumbai and Gandhinagar stations, which means 96.70 per cent of seats were booked.

All the seats in the executive chair car and 96.37 per cent of the seats in the chair car of the train were booked during the maiden ride between Mumbai and Gandhinagar, he said.

A Vande Bharat train has 1,123 seats, including 104 seats in the executive chair car and 1,019 seats in the chair car. Of these seats, all 104 seats in the executive chair car and 982 seats in the chair car were booked, Thakur added.

The train will run six days a week except on Sundays.

During the maiden run of the train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai stations on Friday, 313 passengers, excluding media persons, travelled on it.

The train, which connects the capital cities of Maharashtra and Gujarat, is the third Vande Bharat Express. The first such train was started on the New Delhi-Varanasi route, while the second one was started on the New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra route.

As per Thakur, passengers will have to shell out Rs 1,275 for a chair car ticket and Rs 2,455 for an executive chair car ticket for the Gandhinagar-Mumbai Central journey.

For the Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar journey, a chair car ticket will cost Rs 1,440 and an executive chair car ticket will cost Rs 2,650. The difference in the fare for two journeys was due to catering charges, said an official.