Vande Bharat freight EMU touches 130 kmph in Ahmedabad-Mumbai Central trial

India's first Vande Bharat freight EMU has clocked 130 kmph during a trial run on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Mumbai Central section of Western Railway, marking a step forward in the national transporter's plans for high-speed parcel movement.

The trial is being carried out by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO). The 16-coach rake, developed by the Chennai-based Integral Coach Factory, is designed to move parcels and other goods quickly, and is being positioned as a modern alternative to conventional freight trains for time-bound parcel transportation.

According to the Ahmedabad Railway Division, the rake was readied at ICD Sabarmati and departed Ahmedabad for Mumbai Central at around 9 am on September 12. The return leg from Mumbai Central to Ahmedabad was run on September 13. During the trial, the train operated with 50 per cent payload and an axle load of 20.32 tonnes, with daytime runs following the applicable permanent and temporary speed restrictions under the prescribed testing protocol.

The RDSO team received technical and operational support from the Mechanical, Electrical, and Signal & Telecommunication departments of the Ahmedabad Division, while Western Railway arranged for fitness, crew, safety and operational requirements.

This is not the rake's highest speed so far. It had earlier touched around 145 kmph in empty condition during trials on the Kota Division of West Central Railway. The train has a design speed of about 160 kmph.

The Vande Bharat Freight EMU is built around a 16-coach configuration and includes refrigerated (reefer) vans alongside parcel coaches. It features wide automatic doors for quicker loading and unloading, roller flooring for pallet-based handling, CCTV surveillance and fire detection systems, an automatic door-locking system, and advanced stability and safety arrangements for high-speed operations. Modern safety systems such as Kavach are also part of the package.

The railways has said the rake is not intended to replace heavy freight trains running on Dedicated Freight Corridors. Instead, it has primarily been developed to carry smaller, high-value and time-sensitive cargo at higher speeds on passenger railway routes. The service could be used for e-commerce shipments, courier packages, electronics, pharmaceuticals, cold-chain products and other high-value goods.

The ongoing trials will help RDSO gather data on the rake's performance and safety, which will feed into an assessment of whether the train can be cleared for future commercial operation. The Ahmedabad Division of Western Railway said the successful trial opens a new possibility in the freight transportation sector, and that such a service could offer a faster, safer, more reliable and time-bound express logistics option compared with road transportation.