Ranchi–Howrah Vande Bharat Express

The 20898/20897 Ranchi - Howrah Vande Bharat Express is India's 31st Vande Bharat Express train, connecting the city of Ranchi in Jharkhand with Howrah in West Bengal. This train was inaugurated on 24 September 2023 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conference from New Delhi.

The route of Ranchi-Howrah Vande Bharat train has been diverted. According to the information, now this train will go to Ranchi and come via Howrah, Kharagpur, Midnapore, Adra, Purulia, Muri. The green signal for this has been received from the Railways. Which will be effective on 3 December.

Overview
This train is operated by Indian Railways, connecting Ranchi Jn, Muri Jn, Kotshila Jn, Purulia Jn, Chandil Jn, Tatanagar Jn, Kharagpur Jn and Howrah Jn. It is currently operated with train numbers 20898/20897 on 6 days a week basis.

Rakes
It is the twenty-ninth 2nd Generation and seventeenth Mini Vande Bharat 2.0 Express train which was designed and manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur, Chennai under the Make in India Initiative.

This rake was converted from Blue-White livery to Saffron-Grey livery due to attraction of passengers and better services in terms of more advanced features that were incorporated in the new trainset. This became operational from July 12 2024.

Service
The 20898/20897 Ranchi - Howrah Vande Bharat Express operates 6 days a week, covering a distance of 458 km in a travel time of 7 hrs 5 mins with an average speed of 65 km/h. The Maximum Permissible Speed is 130 km/h.