Glass Roofs to Rotating Chairs: 6 Incredible Facts About the Indian Railways’ New Vistadome Coaches

If you ever find yourself travelling by the newly flagged-off vistadome coaches between Vishakhapatnam and Araku one of these days, you will be forgiven for thinking that you are suddenly in Europe.

That’s because the vistadome coaches, the first of their kind in India, have a host of features that won’t be out of place in one of the top of the line trains you would find plying through the Swiss alps.

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Here are six facts you must know about the coaches that are likely to take your breath away:

1) The 40-seater coaches were flagged off by Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, who took to Twitter to share some pictures of the plush interiors.

This is the first project of its kind in India.

Glad to share pictures of new vistadome coaches having features like glass roofs,LED lights,rotatable seats,GPS based info system etc pic.twitter.com/KrQHlC2brO

— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) April 16, 2017

2) One of the stand-out features of the Vistadome coaches is the glass roof that boasts electrically controlled opalescence. Hence, the roof can be made transparent for the passengers to get a panoramic view of their journeys. In case passengers want a better view, they can head to the special observation lounges.

3) All the seats in the vistadome coaches are rotatable and are pushback chairs. This is once again to enable the passengers to take full advantage of the spectacular panoramic views that the coaches have to offer.

4) The coaches also boast a plethora of other features such as automatic sliding compartment doors, multiple television screens providing infotainment to passengers, wide side door for Divyangs, GPS based info system, LED lights and more.

5) The coach, which was flagged off by the railways minister, is currently running on a trial basis. Only after ensuring that they are able to run in top condition, will an inauguration date be fixed. For now, they are being attached to the Kothavalasa-Kirandul passenger train every day at 7.15am.

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6) The Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, Tamil Nadu built the coaches. There will be a total of four of such coaches in the whole of India for now. Two will ply in Araku and two have been built for Kashmir. The first of these coaches has already been flagged off in Araku with the second one becoming functional by the end of the month.

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