Brindavan Express
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The 12639/12640 Brindavan Express is a train linking Chennai Central and Bangalore City Railway Station. It leaves Chennai Central at 07:50 and reaches Bangalore City at 14:00 hours. In the reverse direction, it leaves Bangalore City at 15:10 and reaches Chennai Central at 21:15 hours. The train has around 24 coaches out of which 1 are AC chair cars.
History
This train introduced in the 1964 as the first intercity express in the southern Railways. At that time it had stops only at Katpadi and Jolarpet covering the 360 km in 5 hours.
Later due to derailments of some trains the speed was reduced to take 5.5 hours in the 1980s. With increase in stops it has now come to 6 hours.
In the late 1980s the MAS-JTJ stretch was electrified. JTJ-SBC the train used diesel engines. For the purpose of speed this train used to have twin diesels for the up gradiesnt(deccan) between JTJ and SBC.
Junctions
The train crosses four major junctions - Arakkonam, Katpadi Junction (Vellore), Jolarpettai and Bangarpet. However, it also stops at Walajah Road, Ambur, Vaniyambadi, Kuppam, Krishnarajapuram and Bangalore Cantonment.
Speed
This train covers the distance between Chennai and Bangalore in 6 hrs 5 min. i.e. 362 km in 365 minutes at an average of 60 km/h. The maximum speed of this train is 110 km/h.The fastest stretch is between Chennai and Katpadi when it covers 130 km in 120 minutes at 65 km/h. The slowest stretch is between Jolarpet and Kuppam as it has to climb up the gradient of the Deccan plateau.
Engine
This train usually gets a WAP-4[WAP-7] locomotive.