Mumbai Rajdhani vs August Kranti Rajdhani

Hi All

I am in a dillemma. I wanted to findout the differences between the Mumbai Rajdhani and the August Kristi Rajdhani. I will be taking the train from Surat to New Delhi and wanted to know whats the difference besides the times and destination stations.

Please advise which is better and which has more modern facilities.




Thanks,
Ridwan

There is no difference between the two trains apart from the fact that the Mumbai Rajdhani is faster and has less stops.

There's a 3rd Rajdhani starting on 26th Jan. between Mumbai & Delhi.

The other difference as noted here may be that the correct name of the train is August Kranti.

if i were running a business & every sale results in a loss, the least i would do is stop selling more. but that logic is defied in both railways & oil marketing companies. i see bpcl/hpcl/ioc crying everytime that they are losing money on selling petrol/diesel, yet i see them opening more and more outlets every month. the same seems to be the story with the new train announcements as well...

The last time I looked at detailed figures, all the AC classes were making a profit, it's the non-AC classes that force an overall loss.

good to hear that. someone sometime back had done some calculations to prove that ac is a class subsidized to please the influential class, but i do recall quite a bit of debate on that...
a quick look at coromandel express makes me feel that more revenue & profit is made in the GN compartment (of course assuming that 80% of them buy tickets) instead of the HA coach...

As per my experience of the Mumbai Kolkata route(more than once) I was the only passenger in the general compartment with a ticket.
No TT ever gets into a general compartment in crowded trains. Its not worth the trouble.

Also - a large segment of passengers of the suburban train network in Kolkata donot buy tickets. Any ticket checking usually leads to widescale violence from the ticketless passengers.

You live in an interesting place Nayan!

i understand...
but then i don't understand why there is an increase in GN coaches in many of the trains lately. is it to prevent internal violence within those compartments? i mean what is the incentive for IR to add GN coaches besides a token gesture?

IR is not just a profit making organisation. As it is a govt run operation, subsidised by taxpayers, it has a mandate to provide cheap(or free ) transport to all sections of our population.

You have no idea

the railways should be viewed as a public service and not a business. If you privatise the railways then your assertion is valid. Until then, hopefully it will never happen, the railways will continue to serve routes, people and rail classes that are unprofitable.

There are some differences between the August Kranti and the Regular Rajdhani.

The August Kranti leaves 20 minutes later than the regular Rajdhani both ways and also takes a different, longer route with more stops and reaches within an hour of the regular rajdhani. Also because of this its actually got faster block speeds between stations than the regular Rajdhani (that is if you can believe those GPS devices some nerds carry around!)

For non-nerds, the AK Rajdhani may prove to be useful if you are headed for Ranthambore Tiger reserve. The AK Rajdhani is the BEST way to get to Sawai Madhopur, the nearest rail head to the park (7 odd kms, 40 rs by rickshaw).

The Delhi-Mumbai AK Rajdhani leaves Delhi at 1640 and reaches Sawai Madhopur around 8pm. The Mumbai-Delhi AK Rajdhani leaves Mumbai around 1700 and reaches Sawai Madhopur at around 5 am ( it has on more than 1 occassion reached an hour earlier).

note: This info was true till around 2 years back. Check latest schedules once.

Sorry to nitpick, but no, it doesn't. Both Rajdhanis take the same route. Infact, the AK Rajdhani actually covers less distance because it terminates at Nizamuddin in Delhi rather than heading all the way to New Delhi.

No problem with the nitpicking, but unless something has changed in last 2 years, the AK Rajdhani halts at Sawai Madhopur while the regular Mumbai Rajdhani doesnt.