Mangaluru-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express trial on ghat section begins

Field trials of a specially-modified Vande Bharat Express train rake on the Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road ghat section commenced on August 12. The rake has been fitted with automatic emergency brake, which is essential to operate the train on the ghat section.

Vande Bharat trial run Subrahmanya Road station

Field trials of Vande Bharat Express rake, fitted with automatic emergency brake, on the Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road Ghat section commenced on August 12, 2026. The trials are being conducted by South Western Railway’s Mysuru division.
| Video Credit:
The Hindu

The trials are being conducted by the Mysuru division of South Western Railway. The trial run and testing are expected to go on till August 20.

The custom-built 20-car rake had arrived in Mysuru last week from Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. After a few static trials at Mysuru on August 11, the rake was brought to Sakleshpur the same night.

Field trials commenced early in the morning on August 12 with Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) personnel on board examining various parameters. The trials will go on till afternoon, according to Mysuru DRM Mudit Mitral.

Successful trials would pave the way for introducing a Vande Bharat Express train service on the Bengaluru-Mangaluru route.

While Minister of State for Railways V. Somanna had announced that the VB Express would be introduced on the Bengaluru-Mangaluru sector by June, the same did not materialise for want of a VB rake fitted with Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system.

Why custom-built Vande Bharat Express on Sakleshpur ghat

A typical VB rake features an advanced Electro-Pneumatic (EP) assisted disc braking system combined with regenerative braking. While the microprocessor-controlled EP assisted brakes apply pneumatically through electric signals for simultaneous and rapid response across all coaches, the regenerative braking helps feed the power back to the overhead wires during deceleration.

As this Ghat section has a steep gradient (1 in 50 – the track rises or drops by one metre for every 50 metres), the Commissioner of Railway Safety had fixed a maximum speed limit of 30 kmph for all trains traversing the section when authorising the opening of the section for train traffic. The Railways has kept a few Banker Locos (additional engines) fitted with AEB with preset maximum speed of 30 kmph. These Banker Locos are attached to normal trains hauled by locos at Sakaleshpur and Subrahmanya Road on the down and up direction. The attachment/ detachment process consumes about 15 minutes.

If these Banker Locos are to be attached to a VB too, its nose has to be removed, which would not look nice. The nose has to be taken in the rake either towards Sakleshpur or towards Subrahmanya Road for re-fitting. This process would consume more time compared to normal trains, thereby defeating the very purpose of operating the high-speed train, said a senior officer from the operations department.

Therefore, the Railways had been waiting for the supply of a AEB-fitted VB rake.

Speculation on skipping Mangaluru Central railway station

The route of the proposed Bengaluru-Mangaluru Vande Bharat train became a matter of speculation following reports that the train may not have a halt in Mangaluru Centrail railway station.

In one of the proposed schedules, the train is expected to run from Yesvantpur in Bengaluru to Madgaon in Goa. The distance is over 700 km. The train was expected to have a halt in Padil station, in Mangaluru, while skipping both Mangaluru Junction and Mangaluru Central railway station. This route and schedule have not been confirmed by the railways.

This led to demands that the train should run exclusively between Bengaluru and Mangaluru.

Indian Railways is expected to announced the route, schedule, and frequency of service of the Bengaluru-Mangaluru Vande Bharat Express train in the coming days.