The Indian Railways has finally decided to speed the Mumbai CSMT – Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani up by 1 hour and 35 minutes. Train Number 22221 will now leave Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus at 16:10 hours instead of the current 14:50 hours. It will reach Hazrat Nizamuddin (NZM) at 10:05 hrs instead of the current 10:20 hours.
22221 will continue to leave Mumbai every Wednesday and Saturday as before.
The change will come into effect from 17th April 2019, according to information issued by Central Railway.
In the return direction, Train Number 22222 NZM – CSMT Rajdhani will leave NZM at 17:15 hours instead of the current 16:15 hours. It will reach CSMT at 11:50 hours the next day. The schedule for 22222 has been trimmed by 1 hour and 5 minutes.
22222 will continue to leave NZM every Thursday and Sunday as earlier.
The trimming of flab from the schedule, of what has become Central Railway’s most important train, has been on the cards for a while. Schedules for some trains were slightly adjusted in order to make a clear path available for the 22221 / 22222 schedules.
Trials with the new schedule were recently carried out on a few runs. With the Rajdhani modified to run as a push-pull configuration, the train was able to maintain new timings, according to sources. This prompted IR to move to a tighter schedule.
Photo Courtesy: Harshad Joshi
