If you want a well-packaged trip to Agra with an assortment of pleasant décor, Wi-Fi, entertainment and music along with a tour package to iconic Taj Mahal; the brand-new India’s first semi-high speed train Gatimaan Express cruising at 160 km/ph is best bet.
Termed as India’s fastest train, the Gatimaan Express was inaugurated by Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu on Tuesday, opening a new chapter in the history of the Indian Railways. The Pioneer experienced the first ride of Gatimaan Express and the train lived up to its promise of reaching Agra in exact 100 minutes. Hustle-bustle could be witnessed in the train even as the passengers were welcomed with a rose on day one.
While Inaugurating the Gatimaan Express, Prabhu said, “launching of semi-high speed train Gatimaan Express is a big achievement for Indian Railways and has fulfilled the dream of Prime Minister. Indian railways shall run more Gatimaan trains on different sectors and this shall enhance tourism in India. It was our dream to increase the speed of all passenger and freight trains and Indian railways has already started working on the mission “Raftaar” and will be accomplished in five years time.”
“It is a landmark in the history of Indian Railways which is steaming ahead with its plans to introduce high speed trains. It is equally momentous for IRCTC which has mandated to manage the entire onboard facilities on India’s fastest train and carry out end-to-end passenger interface activities,” said IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director AK Manocha.
Interestingly, the train is equipped with Wi-Fi which provides free multimedia services enabling passengers to view movies, news and cartoons during their journey. However, the Wi-Fi struggled to run smooth in the first half of the journey.
The menu list is quite different from that of Shatabdi. The breakfast menu involves South Indian, North Indian veg and non-veg meals. The meals include wholewheat upma, mini dosa, kanjeevaram idli, fresh cut fruits, aloo kulcha with swiss roll, roasted dry fruit and chicken roll. Chicken sausages with Spanish egg white omelette and date walnut slice cakes will also be served.
In the lap of luxury, the journey comes along with the option of different tour packages. There are two luxurious packages, one that is a full day tour package and second, a one night stay package that includes stay at five star hotel, multi-cuisine meals and visit to heritage sites.
The train has WAP5 electrical engine, the best in-class loco produced so far by Chittaranjan locomotive Works, and linke Hofmann Busch coaches in use in the Shatabdi Express. “While the locomotive and the coaches are the same, we have made several changes in the track and the signaling system to improve the speed,” said a senior rail ministry official. Gatimaan’s launch follows seven trial runs conducted by the Rail Ministry over the past two years
In order to ensure Gatimaan’s smooth ride with higher speed, Northern Railways has worked to cut down more than 80 obstacle points on the Delhi-Agra route, including sharp turns, bridges, crossings and yards — to less than 18 points. The train will still travel at 120 kph speed between Delhi and Tughlakabad and catch speed thereafter.
The Rail Ministry has also tilted tracks at a few places to negotiate curves at higher speeds. Gatimaan Express will be run with 10 passenger coaches, including eight air-conditioned chair car (AC CC) coaches and two executive class bogies with a total of 715 seats. Tickets will be priced at `750 for AC CC and `1,500 for executive CC. This is around 50 per cent higher than the tariff for Shatabdi Express — `515 for AC CC and `1,010 for executive CC travel.