Train reliability

Ian Ralph

I will be travelling quite a lot on trains during my holiday in India. Delhi - Shimla - Delhi - Agra - Jaipur - Udaipur - Mumbai - Eranakulam.

Are Indian trains generally on time (within say 15 to 20 minutes of scheduled time), or can they be really, really late?

thejag

trains are generally on time... they are pretty punctual. the only time they get late is due to extremely bad weather or track problems...

What dates are you traveling? In the north Winter months are when thick fog cover causes delays or even cancellations in trains apart from disrupting air and road traffic as well...

indracal

It also depends upon the route: say the train is a connecting train to some other train, but given the complexity of the India Railway network, I'd say that a delay of upto 30-mins is acceptable and to be considered while planning your journey.

For a history of a specific train, you may wish to have a look at http://indiarailinfo.com. Note that this is unofficial.

www.trainenquiry.com is an Official IR site informing about their train running info. I would suggest that you monitor the specific train(s) you want to board on this site for a couple of days before you form an opinion.

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Ian Ralph

Thank you very much. I am now suitably reassured about train reliability

TimMakins

I have been on a train running 9 hours late. Actually, it wasn't a problem, as I was due to arrive in the evening, so saved the hotel room cost for that night. I've seen quite a few trains delayed 16 and 20 hours, usually in the winter when the fog is thick. My personal best was a train running 40 hours late, and that was a train that ran every 24 hours. I don't know if the next day's train overtook it.

Can anyone beat that??

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indracal

Ian,

Not to dampen your spirit, but what Tim said in the above post is also true. E.g. The Toofan Express from Kolkata (Howrah) to Delhi is always late by a sizeable margin, whereas Delhi Kalka Exp is never late by a serious margin (2 hrs+).

It depends on a lot of factors as well, so keep an eye on the sites that I referred, and you should get a feel. Always keep (very big) room for fog, if you are travelling North India during winters.