Train Travel in Orissa

The Rajdhani Express is the fastest train between Delhi and Bhubaneswar, making the trip in 24 hours four days a week. Several slower trains travel from Puri to Bhubaneswar to Delhi, including the daily Purshottam Express, the Puri Express (four days a week), and the Neelachal Express (three days a week), which stops at Varanasi and Lucknow. From Bhubaneswar on the daily East Coast Express, it's seven hours north to Calcutta (Howrah station on the schedules) and 23 hours south to Hyderabad. The weekly Muzaffarpur-Yeshvantpur Express makes stops at Visakhapatnam (1 am), Berhampur (also Brahmapur; nearest railhead to Gopalpur-on-Sea), Balugaon, and Bhubaneswar (4 am). Every day but Sunday, the Jan Shatabdi Express makes an 8-hour run between Bhubaneswar and Kolkata.

Three days a week the Puri Express makes the 43-hour trip between Ahmedabad and Puri; links connect Puri with Visakhapatnam (8 hours) and the Orissan weaving town of Sambalpur (11½ hours). The fastest Chennai connections from Bhubaneswar are the daily Coromandel Express (20 hours) and the twice-weekly Chennai Express (21 hours). The Secunderabad Express to Chennai (22½ hours) continues on to Bangalore (8½ hours more) twice a week. The twice-weekly Ernakulam Express also connects with Chennai (22½ hours), continuing on to Kerala's Trivandrum, 3 hours farther down the line, and Ernakulam, 4½ hours more; the slower, twice-weekly Trivandrum Express makes the same stops. The Dhanbad Express connects daily Visakhapatnam and Rayagada (jumping off point for tribal tours). The Visakha Express and Howrah Mail daily connects Visakhapatnam with Berhampur (Brahmapur; closest railhead to Gopalpur-on-Sea.