UP Gets Its First Vande Bharat Sleeper Train Connecting Varanasi and Delhi: Route, Timings and Stations

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw flagged off a Vande Bharat Sleeper Express between Varanasi and New Delhi on Saturday, taking the next generation train service to yet another important route.

The new service will operate with enhanced comfort, safety and sleeping facilities for passengers, and aim to facilitate better night connectivity between eastern Uttar Pradesh and the national capital.

Also Read: Bigg Boss 20: Salman Khan Questions Scout Over His Silence on Love Gill's Issue

Route and stops

The new service will run from Varanasi to national capital. The train will stop at Prayagraj, Kanpur Central, Aligarh and Ghaziabad, which are important urban centres and neighbouring districts.

Vande Bharat Sleeper train will leave Varanasi at 20.50 in the evening and reach New Delhi at 06.10 the next morning. It will depart New Delhi at 21.40 and arrive in Varanasi at 7.10 on the next day on its way back.

The new service will save 55 minutes from Varanasi to New Delhi and 35 minutes from New Delhi to Varanasi as compared to the existing Shiv Ganga Express.

The train will run on six days a week with the exception of Fridays for Varanasi-originating train and Saturdays for New Delhi-originating train. Its overnight operations will enable passengers to depart in the evening and arrive at their destination the following morning.

Vande Bharat sleeper express: Distance, travel time and fare.

The train will have a total 16 coaches with three classes of third AC, second AC and first AC. It will run through Kanpur Central and between the two cities the distance of 760 km will be completed in 9 hours and 30 minutes.

This train, no 27421, will leave Varanasi at 8.50 pm and arrive at Delhi at 5.55 am the next day as per the railway timetable. Train no. 27422 leaves New Delhi at 2140 hrs and reaches Varanasi at 0645 hrs the next morning.

The commercial has yet to be released for fares.

The charges are expected to be marginally higher than other trains running on the stretch which offer similar facilities, NDTV reported.

Vande Bharat trains

Vande Bharat trains have been introduced in the New Delhi-Varanasi route in February 2019 and have already touched over 9.1 crore passengers with a corpus of one lakh trips.

During the FY25-25 alone, nearly 3.98 crore passengers used the service, which increased by nearly 34 per cent from 2.97 crore passengers in the previous year.

Also Read: US Plans to Deport 150 Afghan Immigrants to Afghanistan Through Pakistan Amid Safety Concerns

Connectivity on Kashi station, with Vaishnaw.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw emphasised the ease of use that the train would provide to passengers after it got off the Kashi-Delhi train. He also spoke of the development of Kashi railway station as a major transport connectivity hub of North India and North East India.

The ‘Vande Bharat' sleeper trains will also be a great convenience as people can be seen leaving Banaras in the evening and coming to Delhi in the morning or vice versa, he said. Together with the ‘Namo' bridge, the Kashi railway station will be a major transport connectivity hub for all of North India and North East India and the country will enjoy this for many years to come, he added.

He also explained about the various facilities which are to be set up at the railway station, such as a big waiting hall and its linkage with the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

It will be a very large railway and transport hub as big as a football field, having an excess capacity of over 50,000 passengers at once, and just about 2 kilometres away from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the southern side of the station, which will enable devotees and pilgrims coming from all over the country and the world to easily visit the temple and the famous ghats in Kashi, he added.

Also Read: Opposition Raises Six Charges Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar; Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta Dies