Visakhapatnam: Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday flagged off the new train, Visakhapatnam New Delhi AP Express, through remote link from Rail Bhavan, New Delhi.
The Ministry of Railways had announced the introduction of New Delhi Vijayawada Air Conditioned (AC) AP Express (daily) in the Railway Budget 2014-15.
It has now been decided to initially introduce this train as train no. 22415/22416 Visakhapatnam New Delhi Visakhapatnam AP Express as a tri-weekly service via Vijayawada commencing from today.
The train will take 36 hours to reach Delhi from Visakhapatnam.
The train no. 22415 will leave Visakhapatnam at 07:45 hours on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and will reach New Delhi at 19:00 hours on Thursday, Saturday and Monday respectively.
In the return direction, train no. 22416 New Delhi Visakhapatnam AP Express will depart from New Delhi on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 06:40 hours and will arrive at Visakhapatnam at 18:45 hours on the next day.
En route, the train will halt at Duvvada, Anakapalli, Samalkot, Rajahmundry, Tadepalligudem, Eluru, Vijayawada, Khammam, Warangal, Peddapalli, Ramagundam, Sirpurkaghaznagar, Balharshah, Chandrapur, Nagpur, Itarsi, Bhopal, Jhansi, Gwalior and Agra Cantonment.
The train will comprise 16 coaches viz., one I AC, five AC II tier, seven AC III tier, one pantry car and two power car coaches.
The Railway Minister flagged off the train in the presence of Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya and Union Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha member K Haribabu from Delhi at 09:30 hours.
At Visakhapatnam Railway Station at the same time, Telugu Desam Party legislators P V G R Naidu, Velagapudi Ramakrishna Rao, Legislative Council member M V V S Murthy, Divisional Railway Manager Chandralekha Mukherjee and a host of railway officials attended the flagging-off function.
