Thane to Goa by train

Exploring the different train options to cover 600 km. journey

Goa remains one of India's most popular tourist destinations, and it is connected by road, rail, and air to other Indian cities.

We can use the road from Thane to drive down the six hundred kilometers or take a short flight to go to Goa a few hours after we start from Thane.

Driving down to Goa by car from Thane is tiring, and the highway has unsafe spots. If you fly to Goa from Thane, you have to go to Mumbai to be at the airport in time two hours before the flight. The commute from and to the airport adds several hours to the short one-hour flight.

Trains offer the most comfortable journey from Thane to Goa and are worth exploring. In the past three years, two innovations in trains make a compelling case for you to explore the journey.

In 2017, Indian Railways (IR) introduced the Tejas Express on the Mumbai Goa route to offer a new train travel experience. In the same year, IR also introduced another innovation, the glass-roofed Vistadome coach on the Dadar Madgaon Jan Shatabdi Express. The view from this coach is similar to that available to train passengers in some other countries. The Vistadome glass-topped coach lets passengers have unrestricted views of their surroundings through the glass windows and roof.

You can cover the Thane Goa journey by the 22119/22120 Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus - Karmali Tejas Express, which covers the 552-kilometer distance between Mumbai and Karmali in eight hours and ten minutes. So, you may wonder how we can call it an express train. You are right.

In IR terminology, Tejas Express is a semi high-speed train that is neither slow nor too fast & can reach up to 140 kmph but averages 60 kmph. Its unique features include doors that open & shut automatically. I remember being at a Mumbai suburban station early after IR introduced the Tejas Express Goa. The announcer at the station emphasized that the passengers should not force open the doors of that train as the doors opened and shut on their own.

When we traveled on the Tejas Express to Goa, in the executive coach, we got seats with a dining table (only seats in the middle of the coach get this). The crew gave newspapers & served mineral water to each passenger. Smartly dressed waiters who spoke English first served tea or coffee to the passengers at the start of the journey early morning.

On this train, the executive class seats were like in the business class of airlines with retractable hand rests. The seats even have calf rests, quite a relief during long journeys. The washrooms were very clean and had bio-toilets, water level indicators, and hand wash stations with biosensors for no-touch operation.

On our journey, the breakfast was good with instant tea served first followed by muffin, cornflakes with hot milk, Idli-Vada sambar & juice. The coach had noiseless air conditioning & retractable Venetian blind style curtains. The coach also had LED reading lights reminding you of airline seats. The train had WiFi through Google and LED displays showing the progress of the journey like on flights.

You can ride comfortably on Tejas Express to Goa with only speed being a concern as the journey to Ratnagiri from Thane took us 4.5 hours. The executive class fare was about three times that on the Jana Shatabdi, but Tejas's journey is more comfortable and worth paying.

So, Eurail like journeys is now possible in India through new generation trains like Tejas Express. Indian Railways new trains, the Tejas Express' cost more to travel than regular trains. But attention to detail in every aspect means you get an equivalent experience for what you paid for the journey. The launch of Tejas Express trains is a proud moment for India, the Indian Railways, and train passengers as IR make the train's coaches at Kapurthala.

The train journey to Goa is very scenic through areas that have rivers and forested hills. There also are numerous tunnels through which the train passes as the Konkan Railway Line on which Konkan Railway Corporation has laid the train passages by carving inside mountains. Another IR innovation now helps you have a great view of the train track's surroundings when you travel by train to Goa.

Since 2017, IR attaches a Vistadome coach to the Dadar – Madgaon Jan Shatabdi Express to let passengers have the option of traveling in a see-through coach. IR had introduced such a glass-topped coach

at Vishakapatnam for travel to the Araku Valley, and the Mumbai Goa Janshatabdi train is the second one where IR is using such a coach. IR makes these unusual and luxurious coaches at its Integral Coach Factory at Chennai.

The Vistadome coach has a roof that the crew can make transparent like the sliding section on a car. The crew has electronic control of the

roof, switching between translucent to transparent views of the sky. Passenger seats let users on such coaches to move 180 degrees, and the doors to the coach automatically open and shut. The coach also has an all-glass observation lounge for its forty passengers who have to pay more than four times the regular fare to travel in it.

India is one of the few countries with a large rail network and scenic train journeys. Train travel along the Konkan coast affords a great opportunity to travel in air-conditioned comfort comparable to a flight journey. In contrast to those by train, road journeys are tiring and increase the safety risk as many stretches of the national highway from Thane to Goa do not have median dividers.

Next time you plan a trip to Goa, consider hopping on an early morning train at the Thane Railway station for a quick, comfortable, and scenic journey to reach your destination by afternoon.

Happy travels.