Railway staff burst into euphoria as the Hyderabad-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express pulled into the Yeshwantpur train station during its maiden end-to-end trial run on Thursday.
The self-propelled, semi-high-speed covered the distance (609.81 km) in 7 hours and 45 minutes, as many as 45 minutes faster than expected. This has raised hopes that the train would have a travel time of eight hours when it begins commercial operations on September 25.
The train will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conference on September 24. It will leave Kacheguda at noon and reach Yeshwantpur at 11 pm halting at all major stations on the way that day.
