Some safety issues found in Sleeper Vande Bharat, Railways wants these addressed
By Arun Kumar Das
New Delhi, Oct 31 (BVI): Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety (CCRS) has flagged some issues concerning safety and design improvement with regard to the ambitious 16-car Vande Bharat sleeper trains while giving go-ahead to it.
Subsequently, the Railway Board has written to the Research Design & Standard Organisation (RDSO) to examine the suggestions for future improvement in such trains.
The approval of RDSO, the research wing of the Railways, is a must for introducing new rolling stock.
Along with this, the Board has also granted the sanction to introduce 16-car Vande Bharat sleeper rake upto a maximum speed of 160 kmph by Zonal Railways. Indian Railways is yet to introduce its first Vande Bharat Sleeper service, the much-awaited advanced version of semi-high speed train for long and medium distance journeys overnight.
Currently, there were about 80 Vande Bharat trains with seating facilities operational all over the country and three more such trains expected to join the fleet in December this year.
The CCRS, a railway safety audit body under the Ministry of Civil Aviation that authorises the operation of new train services, granted approval in September 2025.
However, the CCRS has also directed that several improvements should be incorporated in future Vande Bharat sleeper trains to enhance passenger safety, fire protection, and system reliability.
According to the Railway Board’s communication to the RDSO on October 28, the CCRS said that for all future variants of Vande Bharat trainsets, standard specifications shall be prepared by RDSO and same shall be ensured to be followed by all manufacturing units for future production. RDSO gave final speed certificate in January 2025.
CCRS has also suggested to explore the implementation of Arc fault detection device (AFDD), which was part of the recommendation of investigation in the accident of train no. 02570, for future production of Vande Bharat sleeper version. In November 2023, a fire broke out in a coach of Darbhanga bound train (02570) at Sarai Bhopat Railway station in Uttar Pradesh. AFDD is part of a fire safety system that detects dangerous electrical arcs and automatically disconnects the affected circuit.
The report also highlights the need to relocate the air-conditioning duct in the First AC coaches, currently provided in the corner of the floor. Similarly, it also said that the emergency alarm buttons, which were found hidden behind upper berth connector consoles, must be shifted to a more visible and easily reachable location for passengers.
The CCRS has emphasized the use of fire-survival cables for systems such as CCTV and the Crash Hardened Memory Module (CHMM) to avoid fire incidents.
The safety audit body has also called for third-party audits to certify compliance with EN 45545 fire safety standards and EN 15227 crashworthiness norms. EN 45545 and EN 15227 are European standards for fire protection and crashworthiness in new rolling stocks.
Currently, a total of 10 16-coach Vande Bharat Sleeper trains are under production by Integral Coach Factory (ICF), the Indian Railways’ manufacturing unit in Chennai. Along with this, a total of 50 more Vande Bharat Sleeper rakes will be produced by ICF in future.
In addition to this, the contracts for manufacturing of 200 Vande Bharat Sleeper rakes have also been awarded, out of which, KINET Railway Solutions Limited, an Indo-Russia joint venture, is required to supply 120 trains and Titagarh to 80 such trains of 16 cars each. (BVI)
