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The sole daily link between the Mineral belts of Jharkhand and the South, this 'crawler' has a colorful history, reliably doing it's duty for more than 50 years ( The date mentioned as the 'inaugural' date is only for the commencement of it's run from Tatanagar). And an unlikely companion in it's story is the East-Coast express.
The first run of this train was on October 1st, 1962 as the 89 Up/90 Dn Howrah-Madras express cum passenger. Prior to this date, the Hyderabad-Howrah (Janata?)...
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express, predecessor of today's East Coast express, was already operational. To make way for an additional train between Madras and Howrah, the Hyderabad-Howrah express was short terminated at Puri, and the Madras-Howrah express-cum-passenger was introduced. For the next 4 years, the train ran as an express between Madras and Kharagpur, and as a passenger between Kharagpur and Howrah.
From October 2nd, 1966, halts were removed on the HWH-KGP stretch, the train was sped up by more than 3 hours and converted to an express through-out. At this time, an express between Waltair (Visakhapatnam)-Tatanagar was operational.
In 1970, more changes were made. The Waltair-Tatanagar express was diverted and terminated at Puri, and the Madras-Howrah express now took the route of the Waltair-Tata express and from 1st October, 1970 (30th September departure from Madras) started running as 89 Up/90 Dn Madras-Tatanagar express. As this train was diverted, to preserve a connection between BZA and HWH, the Hyderabad-Puri express was again diverted and extended to Howrah. 5 years later, the Hyderabad-Howrah express was re-branded and started running as the East Coast express.
In November 1975, it was extended to Bokaro, reversing at Tatanagar. This was the beginning of this train's name as 'Bokaro express' - a name which is still used today in the Southern states.
In 1980, the train was dieselized, and a slip portion from Ranchi was added, connecting to the main train at Rourkela. Sometime before 1984, the Ranchi portion was extended to Bokaro via Muri, and the main portion of the train was again terminated at Tatanagar. Due to the extension, the slip portion to Ranchi/Bokaro was given more coaches and took over as the main train, while the Tatanagar portion was renamed as the link/slip portion.
In the 1991 rail budget, an extension to Ernakulam was proposed, which materialized later in that year as an extension to Alleppey. For a short time in 1999, the train bypassed Madras Central (MAS) and ran via Perambur. However, as this was the only daily link on this route, following several protests, the route was restored and the train started running through MAS again from July 1st, 1999.