Express trains in India

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (August 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Indian Railways Rajdhani/Shatabdi lines^[1]

Express trains are express rail services of India. Express trains make a small number of stops, unlike ordinary passenger or local trains. Because of their limited stops, these trains are able to obtain the highest speeds of any trains in India. An express train is one where the average speed, excluding halts, is greater than 42 km/h. Including halts the average speed often is below 42 km/h. Although this is pretty slow as compared to international standards, the "Express" trains here mean faster than the ordinary passenger and local trains. In some cases, trains run express where there is an overlapping passenger train service available, and run as passenger train, where there is no supplemental passenger service.

Superfast[]

Superfast trains are express trains which make still fewer stops, as compared to ordinary express trains, achieving still shorter journey times. Tickets cost more than ordinary express trains as they have "superfast surcharge" added to them. Trains with an average speed, excluding halts, equaling or exceeding 55 kilometres per hour (34 mph) (60 kilometres per hour (37 mph) until the early 1990s) on both up and down journeys fall into this category and are numbered with a prefix of 12 or 22 or 20 (previously 2). Including halts the average speed often is below 55 km/h. In some cases, trains run superfast where there is an overlapping express service available, and run as ordinary express trains where there is no supplementary express service.

Mail[]

Mail trains are the trains which earlier exclusively had mail coaches. These coaches were named as "Railway Mail Service" coaches, and were operated with collaboration between the railways and the postal department. Nowadays, mail trains no longer have these coaches. The mail trains carry mail in the luggage coach itself, but the train branding continues to be in use.

Un-reserved travel[]

The Jan Sadharan Express and Antyodaya Express are fully Unreserved/General express trains. These trains have all Unreserved/General coaches.^[2]

Apart from Antyodaya and Jan Sadharan trains, unreserved/general coaches are also present in express trains. A new series of Deen Dayalu coaches has also been proposed for long-distance trains. The Deen Dayalu coaches are more comfortable than the existing old coaches.^[3]

Speed[]

The average speed of express trains, range from 36 kilometres per hour (22 mph) to 113 kilometres per hour (70 mph). Of this, counting up and down trains separately, 23 trains have an average speed more than 80 km/h, whereas 72 trains have an average speed between 70 and 80 km/h. The speed of express trains is calculated from the latest Indian Railways timetable.

The design of the railway switches, with a speed limit of 50–90 km/h, is the major bottleneck to higher speed.^[4] Another constraint is the need to accommodate freight trains at the current top speed of 70 km/h.^[5] These constraints to speed are consequences of sharing tracks with freight and lower speed suburban passenger trains.

The train stops reduce the average running speed of a train by preventing it from gaining higher speed. The distance between stops is as short as 2 km between New Bongaigaon-Bongaigaon on the Howrah–Dibrugarh Kamrup Express, and as long as 528 km between Vadodara–Kota on the Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express.

Gallery[]

• 

  Gatimaan Express

• 

  Shatabdi Express

• 

  Rajdhani Express

• 

  Shatabdi Express LHB coach

• 

  Tejas Express Executive Class coach

• 

  Unreserved/General Deen Dayalu coach

See also[]

• High-speed rail in India
• List of high-speed railway lines in India
• MEMU
• Slow and fast passenger trains in India
• Suburban trains

References[]

External links[]

• List of All Express and Mail Trains
• List of All Superfast Trains