Gitanjali express route

GITANJALI EXP 12859 is a Mail/Express train that runs from C SHIVAJI MAH T to HOWRAH JN. GITANJALI EXP covers a total distance of 1968 kms and takes 30:30 hours to complete the journey. It starts from C SHIVAJI MAH T station at 06:00 and reaches HOWRAH JN station at 12:30 on the day 2 of the journey. The train has total 24 coaches including first AC, 2nd tier AC, 3rd tier AC, sleeper coach, unreserved and SLR along with Pantry coach.

• Also read in: • Coromandel Express: All but the ‘Rajdhani’ of coastal route, minus the name Old-timers and train enthusiasts say the train, which started operations on March 6, 1977, from Madras, offered unmatched facilities to its passengers. It was faster than all other trains of its time, had a pantry car and a library, and showed movies in its AC coaches Newspaper adverts announcing the birth of the Coromandel Express in 1977 to the world gave all indications that it was a star product even before it started operations.“Instead of 32.35 hours taken by the Madras Mail, this train will take 25 hours to complete its journey,” the advert Yugantar, a Bengali newspaper, announced. “The train is totally vestibuled to enable serving of meals from the pantry car,” it said, as a USP of the new train, telling the world about the “first inter-city bi-weekly train” that started on March 6, 1977 from Madras and March 7 from Howrah. Long before the word was coined, the Coromandel Express was already pegged as an “overnighter”, offering the latest in comfort and speed that Indian Railways — still trying to graduate from its Colonial legacy of steam engines — had to offer. By 1977, the Rajdhani was running successfully between, say, Howrah and “My parents were pleasantly surprised to find a library as part of the bouquet of facilities aboard the new train,” says Souroshankha Maji, a researcher and rail heritage enthusiast whose lecturer parents, Saroj and Debani, were among the first...