In a rare feat of what is being tagged as “14 Minutes Miracle Cleaning”, the semi high speed Vande Bharat Express Trains will now be cleaned in flat 14 minutes.
The new age trains now traversing several important cities across the country that have caught attention of the nation in recent months due to its aesthetics will be cleaned after each round trip in maximum 14 minutes similar to the practice in passenger aircrafts cleansed after every flight.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told The Pioneer that it will indeed be yet another historical step towards making the rail ambience pleasant and will also enhance the passenger as well as public aspiration to keep the rail property always clean and travel worthy.
As of now Vande Bharat and all other trains like Shatabdi, Rajdhani, Humsafar and mail trains take about a minimum of 45 minutes to a maximum of four hours to cleanse to prepare the train for onward journey.
Sources in the Ministry of Railways said that the cleaning cue has been taken from the Japanese Bullet Trains where workers have precisely seven minutes to clean the carriages of seven coaches before the next round of passengers board.
Each 100-seat carriage is covered by one worker, who wipes down food trays, clears the seats and sweeps the floor and the same is to be adopted for the trains in India in near future.
“I will personally be on board a Vande Bharat to kick start the wonder cleaning services to begin with Vande Bharat and in due course of time will be replicated in all the trains in future,” said Vaishnaw.
The Railway Minister will personally kick-start this initiative at the Delhi Cantonment Railway Station on Shramdaan Divas on Sunday.
More than 32 Vande Bharat trains will simultaneously launch this system across the country on October 1 and the same cleaning process will be followed as per routine and roster. The scheme will also be showcased for passengers at Anand Vihar Terminal, Chennai, Pune and Shirdi.
Vande Bharat train presently takes 45 minutes to clean. Which means for the present train capacity of seven coaches with rotational seating facility, one coach will take two minutes to clean and thereby multiple of two minutes with additional coach in the train.
“For each coach of the Vande Bharat train, a total of 4 cleaning staff would be deployed. The cleaning would be executed manually and for which the cleaning staff has received over a month long training and has held multiple mock drills,” railway officials explained when queried on the operation system of 14 minute magic cleaning.
Indian Railways has been working for some time to change the process of cleaning of India’s premium trains for optimum use of its rolling stock.
Before launching this concept, the Railways carried out a couple of dry-runs where the attendants cleaned the train first in around 28 minutes and then improved it to 18 minutes. “Now it will take only 14 minutes without involving any new technology,” the Minister said.
As of now 68 Vande Bharat train services are functional and Vaishnaw informed that the work on the air conditioned sleeper class is going in full swing and the prototype will be put on tracks by year end and the Ministry hopes to roll on the first such services by February 2024.
