Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 November virtually flagged off the Ernakulam–Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express—India’s 78th semi-high-speed train and the first to knit together three southern states on a single premium service. Covering 625 km in 8 hours 40 minutes, the eight-coach ‘Mini’ Vande Bharat slashes current rail travel times by nearly three hours and offers airline-style seating, wi-fi and bio-vacuum restrooms.
Southern Railway expects strong uptake from IT professionals commuting between Kerala’s commercial capital and Karnataka’s tech hub, as well as from manufacturing clusters in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Salem. Officials tout the service as a catalyst for same-day client meetings and weekend leisure trips, predicting a 12-15 % modal shift away from short-haul flights on the sector.
![New Ernakulam–Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express Supercharges Southern Business Corridor]()
For global mobility teams relocating staff within India, the train expands high-speed connectivity beyond the Delhi–Mumbai–Chennai corridors, providing a cost-effective alternative to air travel and reducing carbon emissions. Companies can integrate Vande Bharat timings into travel-approval tools and benchmark the service’s reliability—currently above 97 % punctuality across the fleet.
Railway planners view the launch as a pilot before rolling out cross-state Vande Bharat links in the east and west. An export-ready Vande Bharat 4.0 design is also in the works, aligning with India’s goal to market indigenous trains abroad.
The inaugural run coincided with three other Vande Bharat launches (Varanasi–Khajuraho, Lucknow–Saharanpur and Firozpur–Delhi), signalling the government’s intent to position high-speed rail as the backbone of domestic business mobility.
Southern Railway expects strong uptake from IT professionals commuting between Kerala’s commercial capital and Karnataka’s tech hub, as well as from manufacturing clusters in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Salem. Officials tout the service as a catalyst for same-day client meetings and weekend leisure trips, predicting a 12-15 % modal shift away from short-haul flights on the sector.
For global mobility teams relocating staff within India, the train expands high-speed connectivity beyond the Delhi–Mumbai–Chennai corridors, providing a cost-effective alternative to air travel and reducing carbon emissions. Companies can integrate Vande Bharat timings into travel-approval tools and benchmark the service’s reliability—currently above 97 % punctuality across the fleet.
Railway planners view the launch as a pilot before rolling out cross-state Vande Bharat links in the east and west. An export-ready Vande Bharat 4.0 design is also in the works, aligning with India’s goal to market indigenous trains abroad.
The inaugural run coincided with three other Vande Bharat launches (Varanasi–Khajuraho, Lucknow–Saharanpur and Firozpur–Delhi), signalling the government’s intent to position high-speed rail as the backbone of domestic business mobility.
