THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two Vande Bharat trains are running services in Kerala. One train runs from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod in the morning and returns back in the evening. Another Vande Bharat train is servicing between Manguluru and Thiruvananthapuram. As per various news agencies and national media, the Railway is keen on bringing changes to these two services.

Currently, there are 16 coaches in Vande Bharat on the Thiruvananthapuram - Kasaragod route. It is likely to be converted into a new 20-coach rake. Along with this, Vande Bharat on the Mangaluru - Thiruvananthapuram route, which currently has eight coaches, will be converted into a 16-coach train.

The demand to add coaches in Kerala's Vande Bharat, which is at the forefront in terms of occupancy rate, has been rising for some time now. Railways and passengers are hopeful that increasing the number of coaches will solve the travel woes.

At the same time, there is still demand from Kerala to make permanent the former special service Vande Bharat train that connected Kochi and Bengaluru. It was the contrarian opinion of the South West Railway zone that took away the beneficial Kochi-Bengaluru service from Kerala. However, there is still hope among passengers about the Railway resuming the service, which had a good occupancy rate.

The South West Railway zone had expressed concern over not having enough platform to welcome the Kochi-Bengaluru train at the scheduled time, which paved the way for the railways to take away the Kochi-Bengaluru elite train service.