After successfully developing Train 18, now named Vande Bharat Express, the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai, has now decided to take up the design, development and production of Train 19, a sleeper version of Train 18.

Speaking to reporters, Rajesh Agrawal, Member (Rolling Stock), said that this year ICF would take up the design, development and production of Train 19 train sets, which are similar to Rajadhani Express.

He also said that ICF would roll out 40 Vande Bharat Express train sets in the future after replacing the the driver cabin crash guard with one made of aluminium.

He noted that in the last fiscal, ICF became the world’s largest railway coach manufacturer, rolling out 3,262 coaches. He expects ICF to produce 4,000 coaches this fiscal.

He added that some South East Asian and South American nations had evinced interest in importing Train 18. However, that would be considered after fulfilling the needs of Indian Railways, he said.

According to Agrawal, about Rs 2,500 crore infrastructure improvement projects are being planned for coach production units of Indian Railways, of which Rs 500 crore planned to be spent for ICF.

Agrawal said the Rail Coach Factory at Lattur in Maharashtra was likely to be commissioned this year.