16-coach Secunderabad-Tirupati Vande Bharat Exp. chugs with more than 100% patronage

Hyderabad: Reflecting the huge popularity of the Secunderabad – Tirupati – Secunderabad Vande Bharat Express, its first trip with double the number of coaches on Wednesday got 109 per cent patronage.

According to SCR officials, since the introduction of the Secunderabad-Tirupati-Secunderabad Vande Bharat Express trains, they have seen a huge response from passengers. This was reflected in the consistently high patronage (more than 130%) in both directions.

Keeping in view the demand from passengers, the railways has doubled the number of coaches in the train from eight and started the operations from May 17.

The seating capacity of the train has been more than doubled--- from 530 to 1,128. They include 104 seats in the executive class and 1,024 in the chair car. In spite of this, reflecting popularity of the train, the trip saw 1,228 passengers making their bookings before the journey.

To further enhance comfort of passengers, the South Central Railway has reduced the travel time in each direction by 15 minutes from Wednesday. The journey will now be covered in eight hours and 15 minutes, instead of earlier eight hours and 30 minutes, said a senior officer.

Arun Kumar Jain, SCR General Manager, said the additional coaches will help the zone in meeting the travel demands of more passengers.

He said meeting demands of the passengers is top priority of the railways. All efforts will be continued for meeting the aspirations of the passengers.

“We were waiting for long to travel in the Secunderabad-Tirupati-Secunderabad Vande Bharat Express since it started operations last month. Since then I was unable to book tickets. The SCR deciding to attach additional coaches gave me an opportunity to avail the service, said Rahul Reddy, who took the first trip.

“I never thought we will be reaching Tirupati in just in 8.15 hours, added another passenger.