The Howrah–Dhanbad Double Decker Express was a Superfast train of

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tot ...

, which was the first of its type to be introduced. It was accommodated with latest stainless steel

LHB coach Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coach is a passenger coach of Indian Railways that is developed by Linke-Hofmann-Busch of Germany (renamed Alstom LHB GmbH in 1998 after the takeover by Alstom and now known as Alstom Transport Deutschland) and mostly ...

, manufactured at Kapurthala Coach Factory. It connected

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

, capital of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

and

Dhanbad Dhanbad is the second-most populated city in the Indian state of Jharkhand after Jamshedpur. It ranks as the 42nd largest city in India and is the 33rd largest million-plus urban agglomeration in India. Dhanbad shares its land borders with Pa ...

, an important city in

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

. With this India joins the league of Europe and North America that run double-decker trains. This new AC design had several features namely stainless steel body, high-speed Eurofima design bogies with air springs and fire safety-features. The coaches had a control discharge toilet system. The train comprised five AC Double Deck Chair Cars and two End-On-Generation Vans. This train was regularly hauled by a WAP-7 locomotive. Sometimes, a

WAP-4 The Indian locomotive class WAP-4 is a class of 25 kV AC electric locomotives that was developed in 1993 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works for Indian Railways. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), AC Current (A), Passenger traffic (P) ...

locomotive was also be seen as an off-link. The train last ran in December 2014. Since 1 January 2015, the train has been cancelled/discontinued. At present the train is lying unmaintained in platform no.16 of Howrah station. This train is considered one of the most unsuccessful trains on this route. According to recent news reports the train will be scrapped sooner than later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howrah-Dhanbad Double Decker Express Rail transport in Howrah Double-decker trains of India Rail transport in West Bengal Rail transport in Jharkhand Transport in Dhanbad Railway services introduced in 2011 Defunct trains in India

See also

References