Vande Bharat Express - Incorporating manufacturing excellence

To achieve an extra mile and jacketing the manufacturing ecosystem, Team EM reached out to Sudhanshu Mani, Creator of India’s first semihigh speed train set Train-18/ Vande Bharat Express for an exclusive interview. This interview articulates the manufacturing and technological excellence that went into the Making of Vande Bharat Express.

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Sudhanshu Mani, Creator of India’s first semi-high speed train set Train-18 Vande Bharat Express, Retired General Manager Integral Coach Factory (ICF) https://www.linkedin.com/in/smani-train18

Can you walk us through the manufacturing ecosystem that went into making the Vande Bharat Express trains?

40% of the train is entirely manufactured in the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), and rest in associated industries. The assembly of all components is done inside the factory, most of which come from the industry. So, India has developed a well-established ecosystem for making modern trains.

For example, the propulsion system, brake system, toilet module, seats, panelling, furnishing, and couplers are all provided by Indian industries. There were only a few components that were imported. Overall, the use of lighter materials or composite materials with the concept of keeping them within the weight limit was specifically used.

Can you brief us on the technological advancements that went into the making of the Vande Bharat Express or Train 18 semi-high-speed train?

There are four aspects of technological advancements - first is the concept, followed by the design and engineering, the third aspect is the manufacturing, and concludes with validation and testing. The concept is developed first using computer tools, where we have the basic framework on which we work. What we want to build, the type of train we want to build, its maximum speed, how many coaches we want to build, the configuration, the ride index, and the bogies the coaches will ride on—all of these concepts are first developed using computer tools.