Telangana Exp from Nov 15

New Delhi: Meeting the long pending demands of passengers, railways today introduced a new train service for Andhra and Telangana regions as announced in the Rail Budget. The New Delhi–Visakhapatnam AC Andhra Pradesh Express through Vijayawada was flagged off through remote control here by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu along with Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

The Railways also announced that the New Delhi-Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh Express will be renamed as New Delhi-Hyderabad Telangana Express from November 15. Two other ministers - Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya and Minister of State for Science and Technology YS Chowdary and MPs from both states were also present on the occasion.

Speaking at the event, Naidu said, "It is a happy day for both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as a new train is allotted and the erstwhile AP Express from Hyderabad to New Delhi is renamed as Telangana Express." Naidu thanked the Railway Minister for accepting his suggestion to extend the train route of the AP Express from New Delhi to Visakhapatnam instead of earlier proposed New Delhi to Vijayawada.

He suggested that the Railway Ministry may look into the possibility of reducing the journey time of the AP Express from 36 hours from Visakhapatnam to New Delhi to about 30-32 hours. He also asked MPs of both States to sit with the Railway Minister and prioritize the projects which were earlier granted but not implemented yet.

The train will comprise 16 coaches which include one AC 1 coach, five AC 2 coaches, seven AC 3 coaches, power cars, pantry car. Stoppages of the train en route are Agra, Gwalior, Jhansi, Bhopal, Itarsi, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Balharshah, Sirpur Kagaznagar, Ramagundam, Peddapali, Warangal, Khammam, Vijayawada, Eluru, Tadepalligudam, Rajahmundry, Samalkot, Anakapalle and Duvvada.