The Indian Railways has started its first AC double decker train service from Howrah, West Bengal to Dhanbad, Jharkhand.
The new train was flagged off by the Railway Minister, Dinesh Trivedi from Howrah station, New Complex on 1 October.
This is the first service of its kind with air conditioning although there are already double decker services running between Mumbai-Ahemdabad.
Many railway zones have shown interest in the new AC double decker wagons.
Speaking to Rail.co, the CPRO of Western Railways said:
“We will be starting this service between the Mumbai-Ahemdabad route, but until today, we had not received any double decker AC coaches.”
The Howrah-Dhanbad Express trains 12383 Up and 12384 Down will run five days a week between Howrah and Dhanbad.
The fully air conditioned double decker train will have chair car coaches and will start from Dhanbad at 5:00 am on every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and arrive at Howrah at 9:15 am.
From Howrah, this train will start at 3:20 pm on every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and reach Dhanbad at 7:40 pm, the railway release said.
It will have nine coaches, including seven Double Decker chair cars having 128 seats in each coach and two generator cars.
The train will stop at Barddhaman, Durgapur, Asansol, Barakar and Kumardhubi on both ways en-route and will have a maximum permissible speed of 110 km per hour between the Howrah-Barddhaman chord line.
The coach design uses many superior technical features like aesthetically pleasing stainless steel body, high speed Eurofima design bogies with air springs for superior ride quality and many other safety related features.
