Vande Bharat Routes: Complete State-Wise Roundup for 2026

The Vande Bharat network has grown past a single showcase train into something closer to a national grid. Rather than one long undifferentiated list, here it is broken down by state, so you can check your own region without scrolling past forty routes that don't concern you.

How many states have at least one route

Counting every state and union territory that a current Vande Bharat route starts, ends or is based in, the number stands at 23. That covers all of the north and west, most of the south, and the main hubs of the east, but the northeast beyond Assam is still largely untouched, and a few plains states with heavy road and older-train traffic, like Haryana, do not yet have a route that starts or ends within them even though several trains cross their territory.

North and northwest India

West and central India

South India

East and northeast India

Which states still have no Vande Bharat

Based on the routes running today, Haryana has no route that starts or terminates within it, even though several trains pass through Haryana territory. Chandigarh does have one: the Ajmer to Chandigarh Vande Bharat (20977/20978). Most of the northeast beyond Assam, meaning Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh, has no Vande Bharat, largely because the rail network into those states is still limited. Sikkim, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep have no route either, because they have no railway line yet, and Puducherry, which has only a short branch line, has none.

The most scenic recent addition

Among the newer routes, the Jammu Tawi to Srinagar Vande Bharat stands out. It crosses the Chenab Bridge, the world's highest railway arch bridge, and the Anji Khad Bridge, India's first cable-stayed rail bridge, before running through the Pir Panjal range into the Kashmir valley, in well under five hours. Few other routes combine that much engineering and scenery into a single ride.

How many total routes are running

Our timetable lists about 80 chair-car Vande Bharat pairs (some routes have two pairs, such as New Delhi to Varanasi and Jammu to Srinagar), plus the Vande Bharat Sleeper pair between Howrah and Kamakhya (Guwahati). That figure keeps climbing as more rakes enter service, so if you are reading this well after publication, check the current total against Indian Railways' own announcements rather than treating this number as fixed.

How a state gets a new route

New Vande Bharat routes are not spread evenly by population or geography. In practice they follow whichever high-demand intercity corridor already has strong ridership on an older Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi or express service, and where the track condition allows the higher speeds the rake is built for. That is why you often see a state's first Vande Bharat launch on its busiest state-capital-to-metro run rather than a smaller town that might feel more deserving.

It also explains the shape of the map so far: routes cluster around Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Howrah and a handful of state capitals, because those are the corridors that already had the traffic to justify a premium, reserved-seating train. As track upgrades reach more of the network, expect the list of states without a route to shrink rather than the existing hubs adding endless further routes.

Fares and seat classes, briefly

Every chair-car Vande Bharat has AC chair car seating and most also have executive chair car; the newer Vande Bharat Sleeper, currently on the Howrah to Kamakhya route, has AC sleeper berths instead. Fares sit above a comparable Shatabdi or superfast express but below a full-service flight on most of these corridors, and they vary by distance and demand the way all reserved classes do. Check the current fare and seat map on the specific train's own page rather than assuming a flat rate across the network, since a short intra-state hop and an eight-hour interstate run are priced very differently.

To see whether a Vande Bharat already connects your city, search your station directly, or use the trip planner to check timings and seat availability for a specific date.