Surat now has a direct Vande Bharat Express to Udaipur. Train 26904 began regular runs from Udaipur City on October 3, and its Surat-bound pair, 26903, starts its daily schedule from Surat on October 4, after an inaugural run on October 2. The train runs six days a week, skipping Tuesdays, with an eight-coach rake of AC chair car and executive chair car seats, Udaipur Times reported, citing North Western Railway.
The same railway notice discontinued the Udaipur City-Asarva Vande Bharat (26963/26964) from October 2. In effect, Railways has stretched the Ahmedabad-Udaipur service south to Surat rather than run two parallel trains.
Timings and stops
- 26903 Surat to Udaipur City: leaves Surat 6:10 am, reaches Udaipur 1:40 pm.
- 26904 Udaipur City to Surat: leaves Udaipur 3:35 pm, reaches Surat 11:00 pm.
- Halts in both directions: Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Maninagar, Asarva, Himmatnagar, Shamlaji Road, Dungarpur and Zawar.
Ahmedabad’s main station is not on the list. Riders from the city board at Maninagar or Asarva, both of which DeshGujarat’s timetable listing also shows. The end-to-end trip takes about seven and a half hours.
Why the Udaipur route has struggled
Udaipur has proved a hard market for Vande Bharat. In an analysis published on October 2, DeshGujarat noted that the Agra-Udaipur and Jaipur-Udaipur services were withdrawn for poor occupancy, and the Asarva service never built steady demand. It pointed to three problems: travel times no better than driving, awkward daytime-only slots, and fares that looked steep next to a car trip.
Ahmedabad to Udaipur is a drive many Gujarati families know well. A train that matches the road on time and costs more per head than a shared car tends to lose that comparison.
What changes with Surat at one end
Extending the train to Surat changes the passenger mix in three ways.
First, the road advantage disappears for south Gujarat. Driving from Surat or Bharuch to Udaipur means crossing Vadodara and skirting Ahmedabad before the hill stretch begins, so a seven-and-a-half-hour train with a 6:10 am start becomes competitive. An early-afternoon arrival in Udaipur also lines up with standard hotel check-in times.
Second, Bharuch gets its first Vande Bharat stop. The district’s industrial belt around Dahej and Ankleshwar has relied on Vadodara or Surat for premium trains until now.
Third, and probably most important for occupancy, the train doubles as a fast Surat-Vadodara-Ahmedabad shuttle. Seats filled on that busy corridor can carry the Rajasthan leg on days when tourist demand is thin, a cross-subsidy DeshGujarat also flagged.
The trade-off falls on Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar travellers who used the Asarva train. They keep a Vande Bharat to Udaipur, but its timings are now set around a 6:10 am Surat departure, and any delay picked up on the Surat-Vadodara section carries into their journey.
What to watch
The Navratri-to-Diwali window is peak season for Gujarati tourists in Udaipur, so the next eight weeks will show whether this format fills seats. If occupancy holds into the winter lean period, expect Western Railway to cite it when pitching more south-Gujarat-origin Vande Bharat routes. If it doesn’t, Railways will have run out of obvious Gujarat-Udaipur pairings to try.
Sources: Udaipur Times, DeshGujarat (timetable), DeshGujarat (analysis), RailMitra
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.