The Indian Railways has rolled back its earlier decision to halt the production of Vande Bharat chair car coaches after 120 train sets.
The Railway Board has now issued an order to manufacture 1,500 Vande Bharat chair car coaches, equivalent to 88 rakes, over a four-year period from 2026-27 to 2029-30. Of these, 720 coaches will be produced by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.
Railway officials said the move is aimed at replacing all Shatabdi Express trains operating on intercity routes, the production of whose rakes has already been discontinued, with Vande Bharat train sets. Of the 88 rakes planned, 68 will be configured as 16-car train sets, while the remaining 20 will have 20-car formations.
Designed for a maximum speed of 160 kmph, the Vande Bharat chair car rakes are primarily intended for daytime intercity services. As of December last year, about 96 Vande Bharat chair car rakes had been manufactured by the three coach production units — ICF, Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala, and Modern Coach Factory (MCF), Raebareli.
Of these, 82 are currently in service, with a few retained as spare coaches. Some additional rakes have been allotted to Southern Railway, Northern Railway and other zones, but are yet to be operational.
Under the revised plan, ICF, RCF and MCF will manufacture 720, 336 and 444 coaches, respectively, taking the total to 1,500. In 2026-27, all three units together will produce 23 rakes of 16-car train sets.
In 2028-29, ICF will manufacture 20 rakes of 20-car train sets, while MCF will build 12 rakes of 16-car sets. In 2029-30, 33 rakes of 16-car Vande Bharat train sets will be produced by all three units.
There are no plans to build Vande Bharat chair car rakes during 2027-28, according to an order dated January 2 issued by the Director (Mechanical Engineering–Production Units) of the Railway Board. Sources noted that ICF had produced more than 88 Vande Bharat train sets between 2018 and 2025.
With Indian Railways shifting its focus towards increasing production of the Vande Bharat sleeper variant, ICF had been allotted the manufacture of only 11 Vande Bharat chair car rakes for intercity services in 2025-26, while another 20 train sets were to be built by other units. Beyond this, there were initially no further plans for chair car train sets.
“There has now been a policy decision to continue manufacturing Vande Bharat chair car coaches, which are likely to replace the ageing Shatabdi Express rakes over the next four years,” a senior railway official said.
