Know all about Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express

Forty years ago, Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express signified Indian Railways' tryst with the high speed era, five years after Japan ushered in the revolution of high speed rail (HSR) in 1964, on the purpose-built 550 km Tokyo-Osaka route.  The first Rajdhani Express started its journey from the Howrah station on March 3, 1969. At 5:00 pm on March 3, 1969, Guard S O Levy signalled to driver G L Tocher to begin the first-ever journey of the Rajdhani from Howrah to Delhi. A bi-weekly service initially, the train did the 1,445-km journey in 17 hours and 20 minutes with nine coaches. Today, India has 19 pairs of Rajdhanis and 14 pairs of Shatabdis.  Shatabdi on the 200 km New Delhi-Agra route is cleared for a maximum speed of 150 km/h, the upper limit of Rajdhanis and Shatabdis has remained limited to 130 km/h. The fastest among Rajdhanis, the New Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani, covers 1,388 km in 16 h 35 min, averaging about 84 km/h.  Rajdhanis and Shatabdis initially reckoned by sceptics and cynics as elitist and unviable are in no way pro-rich, nor unremunerative.