Mumbai is all set to get its first Amrit Bharat Express. This new train will run between Saharsa in Bihar and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in Kurla, giving Mumbaikars a direct link to the eastern parts of the country. It’s the third such train in the country, following the ones launched on the Darbhanga-Anand Vihar and Malda Town-Bengaluru routes.
Now, what’s special about this train? Well, it’s designed for the common traveller. It’s a superfast, non-air-conditioned train made for long-distance travel—more than 800 km—and has sleeper and unreserved coaches. Think of it like a Vande Bharat, but for the aam aadmi.
The route this train will take is also quite packed. It’ll pass through Samastipur, Muzaffarpur, Danapur, Buxar and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya station (which used to be called Mughalsarai). So, if you’ve got folks in Bihar or nearby, this one’s going to be handy.
This train runs in a ‘push-pull’ format, which means there’s an engine on both ends. Because of that, there’s no need to turn the train around at any station. That saves time, especially in routes where loco reversals eat up precious minutes. The speed is decent too—it can go up to 130 kmph.
The coaches are made at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai. The railways are planning more of these trains—200 in total. Fifty are already being built, and the rest are in the pipeline.
But not everyone’s impressed.
Railway activists and regular commuters say this route is already well-served. They feel the railways should’ve picked routes that badly need faster service, especially those where trains go through 3 or 4 loco reversals. Trains like Kolhapur-Nagpur Express and Pune-Amravati Express, for example, have to stop multiple times just to change engines. With a push-pull train, that whole process could be skipped, saving hours.
Some commuters say Mumbai’s southern links like Chennai and Bengaluru are still stuck with slow trains running on old schedules. Despite the tracks being upgraded for higher speeds, trains are still crawling at 56 kmph on average. There’s a big demand to introduce faster trains on these routes using Amrit Bharat or Vande Sleeper rakes.
There’s also chatter about how this new train will affect Mumbai’s rail traffic. From Kasara to Kalyan, it’ll share space with suburban locals. If it uses the third and fourth lines from Kalyan to Thane, it might slow things down there too. People are already comparing this with the Ratnagiri-Dadar service which only overlaps for a few stations.
Another point raised by railway fans is how some essential trains haven’t been brought back after COVID. Services like Bhusaval-Mumbai Passenger and Pune-Panvel Passenger are still waiting for a return. Yet, slots are being used for new out-of-state trains.
So yes, the Amrit Bharat Express is a big deal and definitely a step forward. But many feel it could’ve been used better to fix bigger, older issues—especially within Maharashtra.
