Browse
Log in / Register
Share
As of April 26, 2026, the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai says it will finalise the design of the 24-car Vande Bharat Sleeper trainset by November 10, 2026 — more than four years after the technical blueprint was first outlined. A senior ICF official told PTI that the engineering work has reached an advanced stage, and the first prototype is scheduled to be ready by May or June 2027.
“The design is already at a very advanced stage. We are hoping to come out with its final version by November 10, 2026,” the official said. “Once the design is finalised, we will start manufacturing the prototype. As per the current plan, we are hoping to have the prototype ready by May or June 2027. The prototype will then undergo trials.”
The official added that once the prototype completes all trial stages, the remaining trainsets will be put into service without much delay. That would clear the way for full-scale production of the 24-car sleeper variant, a format Indian Railways has been planning for years but has yet to turn into a commercial reality.
ICF published the technical specifications and standards for the Vande Bharat platform on April 4, 2022. That document described a 24-coach trainset consisting of 19 AC 3-tier coaches with 1,215 berths, four AC 2-tier coaches with 192 berths, and one First AC coach with 24 berths. In total, the configuration provides for roughly 1,431 sleeping berths, making it one of the largest passenger-carrying trainsets now planned in the Indian rail system.
What was missing at that point was the detailed engineering design needed for manufacturing. The 2022 release laid down operational parameters and standards, not the production-ready drawings, so the design phase was always expected to be a separate, time-consuming step. ICF has now set a firm date to close that step.
The current design push sits inside a much larger procurement programme. In 2023-24, the Railway Ministry announced a plan for ten 16-coach Vande Bharat Sleeper trainsets to be built by ICF Chennai and BEML. At the same time, the ministry said 50 24-car configuration rakes had been envisaged for manufacturing at ICF.
On December 17, 2024, the ministry placed orders for propulsion equipment for those 50 rakes. Medha will supply propulsion systems for 33 rakes, while Alstom will supply systems for the remaining 17. The split gives Indian Railways a diversified supplier base for traction equipment, rather than relying on a single manufacturer for a fleet of this size.
A ministry press note from February 6, 2025 said full-scale production of the 24-car Vande Bharat Sleeper trainsets would begin in 2026-27, with the programme expected to strengthen India’s self-reliance in railway technology. With the design process now headed for a November 2026 close, that production timeline still aligns, provided the prototype and trials stay on schedule.
The 24-car project is not the only Vande Bharat Sleeper work under way. Of the ten 16-coach trainsets announced earlier, one pair was launched in January on the Howrah-Kamakhya route. Two other pairs are ready for launch, but the Railway Ministry has not yet decided their destinations. The remaining two pairs are in different stages of manufacturing with BEML.
That means Indian Railways is simultaneously managing two sleeper variants — the 16-car and 24-car — across different production lines. The 16-car version is further along, but the 24-car version is designed to maximise berth capacity on busy long-distance corridors where overnight demand is high.
The 24-car and 16-car programmes are not the end of the pipeline. Kinet Railway Solutions Ltd, an Indo-Russian joint venture formed by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd and Russian manufacturer Transmashholding, is set to build 120 16-car Vande Bharat Sleeper trainsets at a factory in Marathwada, Maharashtra. A separate BHEL-Titagarh consortium will manufacture another 80 16-car sets.
Some of these manufacturers have already revised their completion deadlines in the past due to technical issues. The new dates are therefore not guaranteed, but the ICF design milestone gives the entire programme a clearer target.
For observers outside India, the 24-car Vande Bharat Sleeper matters as an example of state-backed rail manufacturing. The trainset is being built through Indian public-sector factories, private domestic firms, and global partners such as Alstom and Transmashholding. That mix is unusual: India is one of the few countries where both high-density sleeper trains and modern long-distance passenger services are being developed in parallel.
The berth layout also signals a shift toward passenger comfort. A 24-car sleeper trainset operating at Vande Bharat speeds would allow Indian Railways to run fewer, longer trains instead of more frequent shorter ones, reducing crew requirements and platform congestion on crowded trunk routes.
The most important date is November 10, 2026. If ICF holds to that schedule, the prototype should roll out in the middle of 2027, with trial runs following shortly after. The bigger test will come when the first 24-car trainset enters commercial service — a milestone that would mark the culmination of a design process started by Indian Railways more than four years ago.
Until then, the project continues to operate on a timeline that has already slipped several times. The five-month gap between design approval and prototype readiness remains optimistic for a trainset of this complexity, especially when traction systems, control software, and braking equipment all need to be integrated across 24 coaches.
Still, the design freeze is the clearest signal yet that India’s sleeper-train modernisation programme is moving out of the planning phase and toward actual manufacturing.
