After the stupendous success of Vande Bharat trains, Indian railways have now come up with Vande Metro, which is considered to be a mini version of the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat Express. Post-budget Railway Minister Ashiwini Vaishnaw had announced that the production and design of this new metro train will be completed by December this year.
A Vande Metro train will be smaller in size with eight coaches, unlike the 16 coaches of the Vande Bharat Express train. It will help in connecting two big cities so that students, traders, and people from the service industry can travel to work and back to their hometowns with much ease and comfort.
According to reports, the General Managers of Integral Coach Factory in Chennai and Research Design and Standard Organisation in Lucknow have got directions to roll out the 8-coach Vande Metro rakes as early as possible.
If we have to take a guess, Karnataka could be one of the states to get a Vande Metro. As per the officials, Bengaluru will be one of the first cities to get the Vande Metro trains. Similarly, The two important cities in North Karnataka – Belagavi and Hubballi-Dharwad are about 140km apart from each other via rail route (Around 90 kms via road), Belagavi and Miraj are about 130 km apart from each other via rail route (Around 120 kms via road) which may also fit the bill for running a Vande Metro in the future.
It may fit the bill, but highly unlikely that it will be considered. Just like so many things, even this will go to Bengaluru first, followed by Hubli-Dwd.
Belagavi will always remain a low priority tail ender.