Garib Rath

The Garib Rath express train is one of the premier trains introduced by the Indian Railways in 2005 by Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav to provide fully air-conditioned travel to those passengers who could not afford the expensive tickets of the fully air-conditioned coaches as in Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express. Therefore, the Garib Rath, whose name means "Poor Man's Chariot", was introduced with the facilities of being fully air-conditioned and running faster than most other super-fast express trains running presently. The maximum speed of Garib Rath trains is 130 km/h which is the same as Rajdhani's top speed. However, in Garib Rath trains, passengers are not normally provided with blankets and pillow and they have to pay extra to get those.

The maiden journey of the train started from Saharsa, Bihar to Amritsar, Punjab. Critics and observers alike noted that the maiden journey was chosen between two commercially unimportant routes as many local Bihari people had migrated to Punjab and Yadav's origination from Bihar led him to choose this route for political purposes. Despite the criticism, the Garib Rath has received positive reviews, with the train capacity reaching near 100% in off-season timings.

Garib Rath trains are also slated to have many amenities such as fridge, microwave oven, tv, cooler, fan, toaster. They have continuous running electronic display which will show distance remaining, next station name and expected time to reach there. The coaches also decorated with beautiful paintings of Indian heritage artwork.

The emergence of the Garib Rath has led to more connections between commercially important routes, where these trains run faster and make fewer stops, such as the Chennai - Hazrat Nizamuddin Garibrath compared to the Bhopal Shatabdi, Bandra-Hazrat Nizammudin Express compared to the August Kranti Rajdhani Express.

Current services

Currently services are offered from these stations:

  1. Jabalpur - Mumbai Garibrath Express (Bi Weekly)
  2. Nagpur - Pune Garib Rath (Thrice weekly)
  3. Ranchi - New Delhi Railway Station via Barkakana (Bi Weekly)
  4. Saharsa - Amritsar via New Delhi & Lucknow. (Tri Weekly)
  5. Jammu Tawi - Kathogodam near Nainital.
  6. Kanpur Central - Kathogodam near Nainital.
  7. Anand Vihar, Delhi - Patna, Jamalpur, Bhagalpur (Tri Weekly)
  8. Anand Vihar, Delhi - Jayanagar, Bihar (Bi Weekly)
  9. Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi - Chennai (Weekly via. Bhopal Junction )
  10. Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi - Bandra, Mumbai (Tri Weekly)
  11. Anand Vihar Terminus - Varanasi via Lucknow (TriWeekly)
  12. Kochuveli - Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (Bi weekly and only Garib Rath Via Konkan)
  13. Kochuveli - Yeswanthpur Triweekly express via Coimbatore Junction
  14. Kolkata - Patna
  15. Kolkata - Guwahati Garib Rath Express
  16. Puri-Howrah
  17. Guwahati - Patna
  18. Lucknow - Raipur
  19. Secunderabad - Yesvantpur, Bangalore
  20. Secundrabad - Vishakhapatnam (Daily)- First Garib Rath to run daily
  21. Hatia, Ranchi - Bhubaneswar (Tri Weekly)
  22. Delhi Sarai Rohilla - Bandra, Mumbai via Jaipur
  23. Yeswanthpur(Bangalore) -Secunderabad (Tri-Weekly)
  24. Yeswanthpur(Bangalore) -Pondicherry (Weekly)
  25. Yeswanthpur - Sainagar Shirdi
  26. Jaipur - Chandigarh (Tri-Weekly)
  27. Anand Vihar - Bapudham Motihari
  28. Pune - Nagpur (Tri-Weekly)

Future Services

Services likely to start shortly

  1. Bhopal - Lucknow Garib Rath Express (Weekly)
  2. Bhopal -Mumbai CST Garib Rath Express (Bi-Weekly)
  3. Kochuveli- Secunderabad
  4. Ajmer-Bhagalpur via Delhi Garib Rath Express (Bi-Weekly)
  5. Jammu Tawi-Darbhanga Garib Rath Express (Weekly)
  6. Sitamarhi-Delhi Garib Rath Express via Patna (Weekly)
  7. Kochuveli- Allepy-Yeshwanthpur

Related links