The revamped Deccan Queen Express, India’s first-ever superfast train. Rolled out from Integral Coach Factory in Tamil Nadu’s Chennai on Wednesday. A grand make-over was done for the prestigious 90-year-old Mumbai-Pune train.  Deccan Queen is India’s “first superfast train, first long-distance electric-hauled train, first to be vestibuled and the first train to feature a dining car”.

The revamp included upgrading to the more comfortable and safer German-design Linke Hofmann Busch coaches, re-designing the external livery of the train’s existing blue-and-white with red-band, and giving a new logo incorporating the UNESCO Heritage Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus.

For the external livery design, the Central Railway, which runs and manages the Deccan Queen Express, had invited the opinion of passengers on their preferred colours in view of their deep emotional connection with the train. Based on their feedback, the CR has presented eight different livery design sets along with their ranking as per the customer votes which will be implemented. For designing the new proposed logo, the CR has engaged experts of the National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad for their inputs and final logo for the train.

The new 20-car Deccan Queen train consists of two second luggage, guard and divyang compartments, five AC chair cars, one dining/pantry car and 12 non-AC chair car coaches. It is the only train in the country with a 40-seater dining car for regular passenger use on Indian Railways. The colour scheme of the new rake has been designed to reflect the train’s heritage value as well as modernity.

Image credits : twitter/rajtoday and twitter/i_m_pushkar5