train or flight - Mumbai to Kerala

Our family (we have 2 kids 10 and 8) we are arriving in Mumbay at around 4 pm on saturday 11/08
I was about to buy a flight to Trivandrum for 4 of us, but realised that we could get an express train down south to Kerala

would you recommend it?
do they have sleepers?

is it possible to buy an e-ticket over internet and get a reservation?

There are good express trains from Mumbai to Kerala (where in Kerala???). All long distance trains in India have sleepr coaches and most of them have air-conditioned sleepers as well.

YOu can check for availability at http://www.indianrail.gov.in/
and reserve tickets at http://www.irctc.co.in/

Your criterion an decideing train or flight should be time with you and your budget.....
use the links given by vpsingh.....for trains..
or else login into any travel info site related to india and book yourself a fight to kerala...

I second this opinion... if you have enough time the train trip is a wonderful way to see a lot of India and meet people, and even if I would have the budget for a flight but sufficient time I would take the train. But it is a long journey! You should see it as an adventure, not as a possibility to reach from A to B.

If the whole trip is too long for you, another possibility would be a night train from Mumbai to Goa, break the journey and then take another train down to Kerala.

If you don't have the extra days for this trip, take a flight.

Completely agree, I would go as far as to say, a long train journey IS one of the best 'destinations' in India, there is an ever changing scenery and a chance to meet Indian people without a tout in sight.

The following is (updated) from another post to give you an idea of the train journey.

You pay 50% of the fare for your children.

There is availability in 3-tier air con for 12th and 13th August, and you could get availability in in 2-tier air con by using the Tatkal quota 6 days before the train departs.

You can book trains at http://www.irctc.co.in/

An E-Ticket is the best option, you can print an E-ticket on your home printer.

Station codes needed for the IRCTC website.

LTT = Lokmanya Tilak
MAO = Madgaon
ERS = ERANAKULAM JN (Cochin)
ALLP = ALLEPPEY
AMPA = AMBALAPUZHA
KYJ = KAYANKULAM
QLN = Quilon
TVC = Trivandrum

I would personally take the flight.. and spend an extra day in Kerala... however, I am Indian and have been on long trains with no touts around all my life

If you are taking the train, and that is to meet people, dont take 2AC.. wont solve the purpose.. you will either have company sponsored snobbish execs or quota group railway employees or some politicos.. and they can be real boring company

Good luck!

I am again impressed how everyone here is helpfull and nonjudgemental - credit to all involved. As I mentioned in another post we have already visited India once - in 96 and then we used only trains and coaches/busses. We even nanaged to travel on the top of a bus for 4 hours :-). This time we must be more realistic - kids are most of the time lest carefull than us ....
The idea to fly to Goa and then to take train is very tempting.
as we are going to spend time from 11/08 till 25/08 in Kereala region we may be able to spare some time for train jurney.

I agree that going first class may be not that interesting - we did such jurney from Delhi to Amritsar aned it wasn't very interesting. Most interesting was one and a half days jurney from Chandighar to Varanasi in second class - non AC, but that was at end of September.

Thanks
Iza

The days can be quite warm and I would have personally made the decision based on the comfort level of the children. I would go for the train option, but prefer to take the 3 tier aircon class due to the fact that non aircon would be quite a rush for the kids who are just landing into India and 24+ hours of hectic train journey maynot their idea of a vacation

And many upwardly mobile Indians are now slowly upgrading themselves to aircon class of travel. The guys you would have spoken to you in english in 96 travelling sleeper class might be able to afford 3AC these days

That sounds good. The part from Goa to Kerala is the more interesting one (from Mumbai to Goa there are lots of tunnels). If you want to travel faster, you can go by Rajdhani. It is quite fast and comfortable, but the people there are not so interesting

I am not sure if the flight to Goa will save you much time. There is a night train leaving from Mumbai CST in the late evening (better than a train from Lokmanya Tilak) arriving in Goa the next morning. Compare the timings of flight/train, then you can take your decision according to them.

For me the heat was never a problem in a train without AC as the wind passes through the open windows... especially in the coastal area as there the heat + humidity is the problem, not the high temperature. In an AC coach I have to go to the open door from time to time to rewarm ... maybe I am special in this regard...

But for Mumbai-Goa AC has the advantage that you don't get the smoke of the engine inside the carriage while passing through the tunnels...

The only problem so far as for flying to Goa from Mumbay is that all flights are before 15:30 - unfortunately our airline change arrival time in Mumbay - we are landing at 15:50 at the earliest ....

That's why I said maybe you'll reach in the same time by train

We are going to try to fly to Trivandrum from Mumbay and at the end of our stay take a train to Goa and then fly from Goa to Hyderabad

I took the train from Delhi to Chennai and it wasn´t bad at all. 2 tier ac cabin. So it depends on your budget and on how much time you have.