Passengers were shifted to a Shatabdi express sent from Delhi.

New Delhi:

The newly launched semi-high-speed train Vande Bharat Express, in headlines for the last three days for hitting cattle, hit a snag in the wheels on Saturday because of jammed bearings. While the earlier accidents with cattle were with the train on the Gandhinagar-Mumbai route, this hiccup was on the one running the New Delhi-Varanasi route.

“The Varanasi Vande Bharat (Train number 22436) suffered a failure due to bearing defect in Traction Motor of C8 coach between Dankaur and Wair stations of North Central Railway,” officials said.

The bearing jam was fixed, however, due to a “flat tyre”, passengers had to be shifted to a Shatabdi train, rushed in from New Delhi, at Khurja station.

“Detailed investigation of the failure will be done after taking the rake back to maintenance depot,” officials said.

The Gandhinagar-Mumbai train had hit a cow near Anand station in Gujarat on Friday, a day after it hit a herd of buffaloes. There was only a dent in the train’s front bumper, and it had to be halted for 10 minutes yesterday.

In Thursday’s incident, the train had hit four buffaloes and its ‘nose’ cone had come off. It proceeded after an eight-minute halt, as damage to the nose – a bumper made of fibre-reinforced plastic – is not essential to functioning. The animals died. 

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said such collisions with cattle are unavoidable and “this has been kept in mind while designing the train”. “Its nose on the front is totally replaceable,” the minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flagged off the newly launched train last month and travelled in it from Gandhinagar till Kalupur railway station in Ahmedabad.

The train reaches 160 km per hour in just over two minutes, and has better riding comfort than other trains, according to the railways.