The Chennai Egmore – Tirunelveli Vande Bharat train (20665/20666), which currently has eight coaches, will soon be converted into a 16-coach train. The Vande Bharat on the route is one of the trains with the highest occupancy rates in the country, at 119%. Currently, the train has seven chair cars with 78 seats and an executive chair car with 56 seats. Once the capacity is doubled, more executive chair cars are expected to be added. There would be a total of 1,100 seats in the train after the change, which means the train will have more capacity than the Shatabdi Express. The train covers 650 km between Tirunelveli and Chennai at a speed of 83 km/hr in 7.5 hours.
Interestingly, last year, the first-ever Vande Bharat Expresses launched with the eight-car rakes was the Chennai – Tirunelveli Vande Bharat train. Around 130% of tickets are reportedly booked on the train daily. The train leaves from Tirunelveli at 6 am and arrives at Chennai at 1.50 pm. The return train leaves Chennai at 2.50 pm and reaches Tirunelveli at 10.40 pm. A special 16-chair-car service launched in September this year between Chennai and Nagercoil was also regularised by the Southern Railway recently. The train that leaves Chennai at 5 am reaches Nagercoil at 1.50 pm. In the return direction, it departs Nagercoil at 2.20 pm and arrives in Chennai at 11 pm.