Surekha Yadav, the first Asian female loco pilot, operates “Vande Bharat Express.”

Being the first woman to operate the recently introduced “semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express train,” Surekha Yadav became Asia’s first female loco pilot, according to the Central Railway.

On Monday, she drove the semi-high-speed train between Solapur Station and Mumbai’s “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminal (CSMT).”

According to a Central Railway press release, the train left Solapur station on March 13 at the appropriate time and arrived at CSMT five minutes earlier than expected. Yadav was congratulated at platform number 8 at CSMT after finishing the more than 450-km-long journey.

Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav, the railway minister of India, tweeted, “Vande Bharat—powered by Nari Shakti.” Smt. Surekha Yadav, the first woman loco pilot of the Vande Bharat Express

Yadav became the first female loco pilot of the Vande Bharat Express, according to the Central Railway, adding another achievement to the organization.

In 1988, Yadav, a native of Satara in western Maharashtra, became the country’s first female train driver. For her accomplishments, she had already won numerous awards at the national and state levels.

On February 10, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gives the green light for the Central Railway to operate two Vande Bharat Express trains between “CSMT and Solapur” and “CSMT and Sainagar Shirdi.”

Railway officials claim that “operating a locomotive on a new route requires extensive training and that the crew must always be on guard.”

“The crew learning procedure encompasses signal observation, hands-on additional hardware, collaboration with other crew members, and observation of all parameters for the operation of a train,” the release claimed.