Surekha Yadav who is Asia’s first woman loco pilot also operated the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat train.

Surekha Yadav is Asia’s first woman loco pilot who has now become the first female to operate the semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express train. According to Central Railway Press release she operated the train between Solapur station and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in Mumbai. The train had arrived 5 mins before the scheduled time while completing more than 450 km long journey. She was felicitated at platform number 8 at CSMT.

Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted “Vande Bharat –powered by Nari Shakti Smt. Surekha Yadav, the first woman loco pilot of Vande Bharat Express”.

Yadav was born in Satara and has done diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Government Polytechnic College at Karad, she cracked the Railway Recruitment Board exam in the mid-80s and joined the Central Railway as a trainee assistant driver in 1986. In 2010 she was designated as a Ghat driver who was to manoeuvre trains through treacherous mountain ranges, she also did a stint as an instructor at Driver’s Training Centre (DTC) in Kalyan, in 2021 she also led the first all-women- staffed Mumbai-Lucknow Special train on International Women’s day. She became India’s first female train driver in 1988 and has won several awards and achievements.