AC AP Express begins jouney from Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam:  The long-pending dream of the people of the State to have a direct hi-tech train from the new State to the national capital was achieved with the flagging off of the new AC AP Express from Visakhapatnam to New Delhi at around 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabu flagged off the train remotely from New Delhi in the presence of Union Ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Sujana Choudhary and Bandaru Dattatreya, Visakhapatnam MP Kambhampati Haribabu and other MPs from the State.

The LED TVs were arranged and the programme was shown live from New Delhi. A meeting was organised by the Waltair Division of East Coast Railway (ECoR) on Platform No-1 of Visakhapatnam Junction before the launch. MLC MVVS Murthy, MLAs Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar, V. Ramakrishna Babu, P. Vishnu Kumar Raju and PGVR Naidu were present.

MLA Ganesh Kumar had to cut short his speech halfway through as the Railway Minister waved the green



flag from New Delhi and the premium AC AP Express began its maiden journey from Visakhapatnam. The specially decorated locomotive, the new LHB coaches did not cause a din as they passed by.

MLC Murthy described it as an ‘auspicious day’ in new Andhra Pradesh. He suggested bringing down the running time to at least 31 hours as the coaches were designed for high speeds. He also sought the train to be run daily from October 1 and connecting trains from Tirupathi, Srikakulam and Nellore as was suggested by Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu.

The MLAs hoped that the new railway zone with headquarters in Visakhapatnam would be achieved with the same zeal. Leaders of East Coast Railway Shramik Congress, East Coast Railway Shramik Union, DRUCC members, officials, staff and the general public were present at the launch.

Divisional Railway Manager Chandralekha Mukherjee and Senior Divisional Commercial Manager M. Yelvender Yadav spoke.