First Vande Bharat sleeper coach maintenance facility to be ready by June

The country’s first Vande Bharat train sleeper maintenance facility will be ready by mid-2026 at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, according to a senior North Western Railway official.

Major Amit Swamy, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer of North Western Railway, said that the state-of-the-art facility at Bhagat Ki Kothi Railway station has been constructed at a cost of ₹360 crore.

The first phase of the maintenance and workshop depot, which includes a 600-metre track facility for the maintenance of 24 sleeper coaches of Vande Bharat trains, will be ready by June 2026.

The second phase, consisting of a 178-meter track including the workshop and simulator facility, will be completed by June 2027, he told reporters.

He said the facility will also house a dedicated testing laboratory with a dedicated wheel rack system and state-of-the-art simulators for training and evaluation of high-tech equipment, highlighting Indian Railways’ focus on precision, safety and performance.

He said the first phase will cost ₹167 million and the second phase will cost ₹195 billion. The project is being implemented by North Western Railway with Railway Vikas Nigam Limited and Kinet Railway Solution, a joint venture of Russia and India, as technology partners.

This facility will only maintain Vande Bharat’s soon-to-be-introduced sleeper coaches, Mr. Swamy said, adding that the project includes a three-tier inspection facility for Vande Bharat buses.

“The depot will have the capacity to inspect and maintain three trains simultaneously. The workshop at the depot will have advanced machinery to lift all train rakes, transfer bogies using a pit table and wheel turning systems to ensure uninterrupted maintenance of Vande Bharat trains,” he said.

Four more such facilities are being set up at Bijwasan railway station (Delhi), Thanisandra railway station (Bengaluru), Anand Vihar (Delhi) and Wadi Bandar (Mumbai).

The facility in Jodhpur will have the capacity to maintain eight to nine trains daily, Mr. Swamy said.

Vande Bharat buses will have to be brought to any of these facilities for maintenance after four days or after covering 3,500 km, he said.