Sealdah Rajdhani Express

Owing to the high demands of the passengers plying between Delhi and Kolkata and to ease down the existing pressure of bookings on the Howrah Rajdhani Express, Indian Railways decided to introduce another Rajdhani class train between these two cities. Since Howrah Division of Eastern Railways already had two existing Rajdhani Express trains, thus Sealdah Division of Eastern Railway was awarded with third Rajdhani Express to West Bengal. Hence on the annual railway budget of FY 2000–01, the then Minister of Railways, Mamata Banerjee, announced the starting of the Sealdah – New Delhi Rajdhani on bi-weekly basis. Based on the same, on 1 July 2000, the first Sealdah Rajdhani Express left for New Delhi from Sealdah for its maiden journey. On 23 August 2006, the coaches of Sealdah Rajdhani Express were upgraded to LHB coaches to replace the older ICF coaches. Profitability According to Indian Railways, in the FY 2022–23, the 12314 New Delhi-Sealdah rake was the second highest revenue-generating train carrying 509,164 passengers in that period, the train generated the revenue of . == Route and halts ==

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It is hauled by a Sealdah-based WAP-7 (HOG) equipped locomotive from end to end. == Time table ==

The train can reach its maximum allowed speed of , except for two specific sections. One is the stretch between New Delhi (NDLS) and Chipyana Buzurg (CPYZ), where the Railway is endeavoring to increase the maximum allowed speed from to . The other section is Gurpa to Gujhandi near Koderma, comprising a long ghat portion where trains are permitted to travel at a maximum speed of . Within tunnels, the speed limit is further reduced to . Additionally, trains briefly touch speeds of over a short distance of approximately . In 2019, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) recommended to the government the augmentation of the existing maximum permissible speed of the Delhi – Howrah route from to , with the aim of enhancing average speed by a minimum of 60% to facilitate quicker connectivity and trade. In alignment with this directive, the Railway Board approved a project budgeted at Rs. 6,865 crore under the Indian Railway's Mission Raftaar initiative. The project's objective is to elevate the maximum permissible speed of both the Delhi – Howrah and Kanpur – Lucknow routes to by the timeline of 2022–2023. However, there has been no specific update on the progress of the project to date. == Gallery ==

File:Sealdah Rajdhani Express - AC 3 tier coach - B 12.jpg|Sealdah Rajdhani Express – AC 3 tier coach – B 12 File:Sealdah Rajdhani Express - AC 2 tier coach.jpg|Sealdah Rajdhani Express – AC 2 tier coach File:Sealdah Rajdhani at New Delhi.jpg|Sealdah Rajdhani Express – AC 3 tier coach – B 7, halted at New Delhi rail station File:Sealdah (SDAH) bound 12314 (NDLS-SDAH) Rajdhani Express.jpg|Sealdah bound 12314 Rajdhani Express == References ==