A Whisper on the Ghat: Khandala Once Broke Trains. This One Broke the Rules Instead! How Vande Bharat Rewrote Indian Railway History!

Rolling on into the future! On May 23, 2025 at km 112/205 during a signal halt on a climb on the steep Khandala Ghat between Mumbai and Pune, my Vande Bharat Express- the 22225 Mumbai Solapur one- India’s ninth and Central Railway’s second, rolled back a bit, not once but twice, but just a bit. 

Not many realised or bothered. The train halted for a few minutes and then proceeded well. The roll back was not a matter of concern any longer as it would have been the case with any other train in another era. I could sense the grasp of its power brake mechanism on the steep incline. This iconic train has made roll backs negligent!

Historically over the centuries, roll backs have been a big deal with catostrophic results. There have been cases of trains rolling back and falling off the cliffs, colliding and derailing. With modern technology in the 20th century, several fail-safe mechanisms were developed and put in place, including speed control, switchbacks and hump yards, minimising any major incidents.

This small episode transported me to my chat once with Sudhanshu Mani, the creator of this first semi-high speed train set of India originally named Train 18. Mani, retired general manager of the Indian Railways’ biggest coach factory Integral Coach Factory (ICF), also known as the father of Train 18 Vande Bharat, had made me realise how this powerful train had super powerful motors and braking system to hold a packed train at ease on the steepest climb. The words were ringing in my ears and I was physically experiencing the train’s ease and majestic power on a steep climb at Khandala.

A steep gradient of 1:37 (approximately 2.7% incline, meaning a 1-meter rise for every 37 meters traveled) is one of the key reasons that every single train that passes the Khandala mountain ghat sections between Mumbai and Pune requires something called banker engines, to push and secure from roll backs and to pull the huffing and puffing trains. The bankers are in pairs of two or three as the power may be required.

This has been the practice since ages on both the ghat sections of Karjat (to Pune) and Kasara (to Nasik). In the 21st century, the tradition of not having bankers was first broken by the Mumbai CSMT-Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express that started having a push pull configuration with powerful 6,125 horse power WAP7 class locomotives on either side. It could easily skip the technical halts of Kasara and Igatpuri to attach and detach the banker engines and the train could glide through happily.

On the Khandala section, the tradition of not having bankers to a passenger train was first broken by the 22225/6 Mumbai Solapur Vande Bharat Express, India’s ninth and the first one on the Ghat section here.

The Vande Bharat or Train 18 has been able to break the mould and liberalize from the tradition of having banker locomotives to achieve independent climb and descent over these steep gradients due to its powerful motors and brakes. With 50% powering and state-of-the-art computer-controlled wheel-mounted disc brake system, it is best placed to negotiate steep up and down the gradients. It also has a pneumatic parking brake which is integrated with the brake callipers. A true testament to Indian innovation, salute indeed to the visionary team of designers and makers at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. Their engineering prowess has redefined rail travel, blending indigenous expertise with world-class technology to create a trailblazing masterpiece.

Indian Railways’ speed story

Train 18 (Vande Bharat) is a testament of Indian Railways dream of speed and comfort. In April 2016 when the Gatimaan Express was inaugurated which achieved speeds of 160 km/h (99 mph) between Delhi and Agra, Indian Railways sought Requests For Qualification (RFQ) to jointly manufacture 5,000 Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) sets with interested international and domestic parties. In September 2016, Talgo conducted trial runs on the Mumbai–Delhi line, completing the journey in ten hours, almost six hours quicker than the existing fastest train with an average speed of 117.5 km/h. The deal did not materialise due to several issues. 

After foreign proposals for introducing semi-high-speed trains were unsuccessful, the Make in India campaign fuelled the cause for developing the next generation EMU semi-high-speed trainsets locally. The Integral Coach Factory led by Sudhanshu Mani as General Manager formed a core team and worked on an indigenous design. 

The team cracked the code and successfully launched the trainset in 18 months, against the world standard of 36 months at one third the cost of its import equivalent. These trainsets known as Train 18 initially, were introduced in 2018 and reached speeds of up to 183 km/h in trials and were later renamed to Vande Bharat.

Poor Mani and his team were sadly hounded, put under a vigilance scanner for alleged procedural flaws. They suffered but subsequently were exonerated as all cases stood withdrawn, exonerating the team -leaving behind a legacy. Politics and games. But that is a story for another day. The train continues to excel and remain the country’s pride and commuters’ favourite.