History
The Amaravati Express runs on the historical Machilipatnam-Mormugao railway track.
The service was first introduced during 1950s as the meter gauge train between Guntur and Hubli. The Guntur-Hubli fast passenger service was upgraded to an express service between 1987 and 1990 and was then named the Amaravati Express.
The train coaches were hauled by a YP steam locomotive and had a slip coach from Vasco da Gama to Guntur. This slip coach to Guntur was attached to the Gomantak Express along with slip coaches to Gadag. These slip coaches were then attached to the Miraj Gadag link express at Londa and the slip coach to Guntur was then attached to the Hubli Guntur fast passenger service at Gadag. This practice of attaching/detaching the slip coaches was discontinued at Gadag and instead the slip coaches went as far as Hubli after the introduction of the Amaravati Express. This practice continued until the gauge conversion work started in the mid-1990s and the train tracks were standardised in 1997.
The train service was extended to Vijayawada in 1994. While the gauge conversion activities were taking place in the mid 1990s, the train service was split into different segments and the full service was not fully restored until 1997.
By the beginning of 2000, the train service had been extended to Londa Junction, Castle Rock and eventually to Vasco da Gama as the gauge conversion progressed. The train was finally commissioned as a daily train between Vasco da Gama and Vijayawada in the mid-2000. But due to a poor response from passengers, the frequency was reduced to bi-weekly and for the remaining 5 days the train terminated at Hubli.
From the beginning of 2003, the service frequency increased to three times a week and the Vijayawada-Hubli services operated on the remaining four days each week. From July 2007, the train service from Vasco da Gama was further extended to Howrah.
In 2010 the 7227/7228 Vijayawada - Hubli service was renumbered as 17227/17228 and the 8047/8048 Howrah - Vasco da Gama service was renumbered as 18047/18048.
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