First LHB Run of Grand Trunk (G.T.) Express !! 92 Years of Glorious Service !! Indian Railways !!

Grand Trunk Express or G.T. Express is a daily Superfast Express train on Indian Railways, running between New Delhi and Chennai Central.

Grand Trunk Express is the 3rd oldest train of India after Punjab Mail and Frontier Mail. “GT” started running soon after the construction of the Kazipet-Balharshah section, which was the last link of the Delhi-Madras route. Initially it ran from Peshawar to Mangalore and took about 104 hours, one of the longest train routes. Later this service was changed to Lahore-Mettupalaiyam. In 1930 it gained its present status while running between Delhi and Madras.

From 1st April 1929 the 'Grand Trunk' express commenced operating as two through carriages running between Peshawar in the North Western Railway (British India) and Mangalore in the South Indian Railway. The two coaches made their way to Madras attached to the South Indian Railway's Mangalore-Madras mail train. At Itarsi, the two through coaches from Mangalore were attached to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway's Bombay-Delhi service. In the final leg of the journey between Delhi and Peshawar, the two through carriages were attached to the Frontier mail and reached Peshawar traveling through Bathinda, Ferozepur and Lahore. Thus the train covered a distance of 2497 miles in a little over 96 hours. This was not an independent train and the name 'Grand Trunk express' only referred to the 2 through carriages operating between Mangalore and Peshawar.

As a prestigious train, it was one of the few to have the early methods of air cooling by ice blocks. It also carried a parcel van for urgent consignments. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the train used to run with a completely air-conditioned rake (First AC and AC Chair Car) on two days of the week, and with its usual rake on other days, and hence was sometimes known as the AC/GT Express.

The train had a 21-coach rake in the 1980s, later extended to 22 and finally 24 coaches.Its first-class coaches were of the corridor type with extra large windows. The trains coaches (along with those of other premier trains in the 1970s) also had noticeably better suspension as well. At that time people from Kerala had to first reach Madras and then board the GT to go North. It was said that all of South India travelled to Delhi in the GT which was the only consistent link between the capital of the nation and the deep South for exactly a century, right from when an unbroken direct railway line was built from the north to the south by the British.

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