Howrah Rajdhani Express: Howrah Departure and Acceleration

The Howrah Rajdhani is India's first, and by default, oldest Rajdhani, plying between the nation's capital and the capital of West Bengal, Kolkata. In terms of average speed, it is one of the fastest trains in India, covering the 1,445 kilometres to Delhi at an average speed of 85 kmph, with a maximum permissible speed of 130 kmph. The fully air-conditioned 20 coach train has 2 First AC coaches, 5 AC 2-Tier Sleepers and 9 AC 3-Tier Sleepers, and 2 pantry cars and 2 EOG (End on Generator Cars). The honour to safely reach the train to its destination is bestowed generally upon a 6,000 HP WAP7 locomotive from Ghaziabad. This video presents the Howrah Rajdhani's departure from Howrah, on a murky winter afternoon. The train crawls out from its customary platform 9 at 4:55 PM. Friends and family members conclude their hurried farewells with their loved ones and hop off the train, as it curves out of the huge station of Howrah. The train takes around 5 minutes to negotiate the innumerable points and turnouts, before joining the mainline. In a few minutes, the train is accelerating past the Howrah car shed and electric locomotive shed, replete with WAP4s, and with a fair sprinkling of WAP7s, which the shed has recently acquired over the past year. By the time we thunder through Dankuni, 15 kilometres away, the train has notched up to 115 kmph, and is impatiently biding its time before the final restrictions are also lifted from its rate of progress, and it is able to notch up to 130 kmph, and travel enroute Delhi. Seen in this video are two train lovers and active railway enthusiasts from Kolkata. Shri Bappa Pal, whose son coincidentally was traveling on this train, had come with his better half and his daughter-in-law to see off his son; and youngster Avishek Basu had also come along to see me off.