Mumbai Rajdhani Express


The 12951/12952 Mumbai Rajdhani Express is a super fast express train of Rajdhani class belonging to Indian Railways that runs between Mumbai Central and New Delhi in India. It is the second fastest Rajdhani service in all of India, surpassed by only the Bandra Rajdhani, with an average running speed of nearly 88 km/h. It was introduced on 17 May 1972 between the then Bombay Central and New Delhi. The train became so popular that prior to the introduction of current reservation facility its reservation chart was prepared just 15 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train. It is a daily service. It operates as train number 12951 down from Mumbai Central to New Delhi and as train number 12952 up in the reverse direction.The train has been portrayed in the film The Rajdhani Express.

Coaches

The Mumbai Rajdhani generally has one AC 1st Class coach, five AC 2 tier class coaches, one pantry car, two luggage cum generator coaches & eleven AC 3 tier coaches taking the total up to 20 coaches. Since its inception, the Mumbai Rajdhani ran with 16 coaches. However, the conventional rakes were replaced by Linke-Hofmann Busch coaches for this train in August 2004, and the number of coaches was also increased to 19 including the pantry cars. The number of coaches again was increased to 21 by the Western Railways to accommodate more passengers in June 2012. No Extra private coach or party coach is attached in this train.

Service

The 12951/12952 Mumbai Rajdhani Express is the fastest train on the Mumbai - Delhi sector and the fastest Rajdhani train as well as the fastest train in India. Mumbai Rajdhani Express is the first Rajdhani to get Alstom-LHB Coaches in India. It used to run six days a week until September 2000 after which Railways decided to run it daily. In its early days, it used to cover the distance of 1385 kilometres in each direction in 19 hours and 5 minutes. However, after the electrification of the route, the speed of the train improved and as of 2018, it takes 15 hours and 35 minutes when operating as train number 12951 at an average speed of 89 km/h while on its return journey as train number 12952 takes 15 hrs 50 mins at an average speed of 88 km/h thus making it the fastest train on the Mumbai - Delhi sector. Before the introduction of the LHB coaches, the maximum speed that could be attained with the conventional rakes was 120 km/h.But after introduction of LHB rakes the highest speed that could possibly be attained is 160 km/h but is restrictred to 130 km/h due to Head-On-Generation Technology. After their introduction, the LHB coaches enhanced the speed of the Rajdhani to more than 120 km/h and even touching 130 km/h most of the time. The highest attained speed was 140 km/h between Asaoti and Mathura, but it was only on trial basis for one month . Recently Virar-Vadodara-Godhra Section top speed is enhanced from 120 km/h to 130 km/h. Hence, Mumbai Rajdhani's time reduced from 16 hours to 15 hr 35 minutes while it continues to be the fastest train in India with average speed of 91 km/h.It is the first train to be experimented with HOG which powers the train directly from locomotive instead of an EOG or generator van .

Traction

When the train was introduced in 1972, it was hauled by a single WDM-2 end-to-end. To maintain the speed and schedule, sometimes 2 locomotives were used. In the 1980s, it used to be hauled by a Ghaziabad-based WAP-1 electric locomotive between New Delhi and Vadodara, while the rest of the journey was completed by diesel locomotive. The New Delhi–Mumbai main line was completely electrified in 1987, which made it possible to have electric traction end-to-end as well as improvement in speed. This enabled the WCAM 1 locomotive to haul the train till Vadodara station due to DC traction in suburban section of Mumbai. In 1995-96, the WCAM-2 locomotive replaced the WCAM-1 as the new locomotive had more power and higher speed, while the WAP-1 was replaced by the WAP-4 and subsequently by the WAP-5 or WAP-7.
Until 2012, from Mumbai Central to Vadodara, the WCAM-2 pulled it after which a WAP-5 or WAP-7 of Vadodara or Ghaziabad hauled it for remainder of journey. Post conversion of 1500 V DC to 25 kV AC traction in February 2012, it is now hauled by a Vadodara based WAP-7 end-to-end. On 24 August, the express was tested with push pull technology from Mumbai Central to New Delhi as 12951 using Vadodara based WAP-7 or WAP-5

Stoppage

On 18 April 2011, three coaches of the train caught fire, including the pantry car. There were no casualties among the 900 passengers.