Maitree Express: মৈত্রী এক্সপ্রেস - দুই বাংলার সংস্কৃতি ও ভাতৃত্বের মেলবন্ধন - Joydeep Roy

Janata Express shows up with twin-tone aggressive WAP-4 at Gangpur
.
.
My friends, this is neither a Passenger train, nor any Shuttle service.. This is an Express train, that too running daily between the Capital and the Ex. Capital city of India. Only 10 hours late running 13040 Old Delhi (DLI)/ Rajgir (RGD)- Howrah (HWH) JANATA Express headed by 22379 WAP-4 of HWH...
more...

shed blasts through Gangpur station on the Sitarampur- Shaktigarh quadruple section of ER. Note how the loco gave a beautiful twin-tone honk to greet us.
The two sleepers attached in the front of the rake acts as the slip portion coming from Rajgir. The rest of the rake is coming from Delhi, comprising of five General coaches, two SLR, and the five Parcel Van coaches. At times, it gets as many as eight to nine Parcel Vans.
The train takes only 39 hours to cover the journey with 89 halts, and average running speed of 40 km/hr. It uses the Old Delhi- Tundla- Kanpur Central- Allahabad- Mughal Sarai- Danapur- Patna- Jasidih- Asansol- Durgapur- Burdwan- Howrah route of NR/ NCR/ ECR/ ER. Poorva (via Patna) follows the same route (only between Burdwan and Howrah, the trains follow different route), and takes less than 25 hours.
But on the day the video was taken, the train was running late by 10 hours. So its obvious that the train would have taken atleast 50 hours to cover 1543 kms, thus maintaining an average speed of 30 km/hr!! Want a faster train to travel??
13008 UDYAN ABHA TOOFAN Express takes only 36 hours to travel between New Delhi and Howrah with 82 halts.
13112 LAL QUILLA Express takes only 35 hours to travel between Old Delhi and Kolkata Chitpur Terminal with 66 halts.
Giving me company on the trip were railfans Lubdhak Chatterjee, Anindya Roy, Vikramjeet Maitra, Anubhav Bhattacharjee, Rohit Basu, Suraj Iyer and Anaron Roy.