01 June,2026 09:36 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B. Aklekar
Deccan Queen on June 1 completes 96 glorious years (Pic/Special arrangement)
Central Railway's most prestigious train, the Deccan Queen, completes 96 years on Monday, June 1. Having braved monsoons, carried generations, and outlived empires, the Queen shows no signs of abdicating her throne. The train will be decorated and celebrated by passengers with cake-cutting, evoking nostalgia on reels and shorts on Monday as it enters its 97th year.
"The train is an emotion, and there is a particular kind of romance that attaches itself to it. We will be celebrating 97 years of its existence and cutting a cake when the train departs from Pune on Monday morning," Harsha Shah, president of the Railway Pravasi Group, told Mid-day.
Deccan Queen during its 50-year anniversary (Pic/Special arrangement)
Ninety-six years ago, on the morning of June 1, 1930, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR), now called Central Railway, flagged off this extraordinary train upon the 192-kilometre stretch between Bombay and Poona. It was the first electric express train.
Two rakes - one in silver and scarlet, the other in royal blue and gold - glided out of the terminal. The "Dakkhan ki Rani" was India's first deluxe intercity train. Her coach bodies were built at the Matunga Workshop; her underframes were shipped in from England.
Deccan Queen introduced first- and second-class chair cars to Indian railways, pioneered the self-generating coach with a 110-volt electrical system, and carried herself with dignity.
The legendary Deccan Queen has many stories. Take, for instance, its first-ever documented accident, archived from the collection of this author. On June 7, 1930 - barely a week into service - an elderly woman cultivator crossing the tracks misjudged the Queen's pace near Lonavla and was run over.
A passenger onboard the train, Dr Naidu from Hyderabad, rushed to her aid in the golden hour, and then she was moved to a local hospital in Lonavala. The arm was badly crushed. The Deccan Queen lost 13 minutes, and yet the superfast train recovered itself on the run and arrived in Bombay (now, Mumbai) only six minutes late, reflecting the resilience of the train.
The decades that followed brought transformation. In 1966, the original rakes gave way to anti-telescopic, steel-bodied integral coaches from the Integral Coach Factory in Perambur - the formation expanding from seven coaches to 12. Air-brake rakes arrived in 1995. A Vistadome coach, added in August 2021, now offers the breathtaking views of the Western Ghats for passengers through its panoramic glass.
Today, she runs 16 coaches, carrying AC chair cars, second-class chair cars, a Vistadome, and that singular point of pride - India's only functional dining car on a passenger train. Forty seats, ten tables, four chairs by a window, and a kitchen humming behind the partition. The newer rake, dressed in a shade called 'Restrained Imperium', has been designed by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.
One veteran railway officer, Anuradha Roy, on her superannuation, recalled his first posting in 1989 as a 23-year-old posted as the reservation cadre at Pune, charged with booking entire second-class coaches of the Deccan Queen by hand.
"No computers. No shortcuts. Requisition forms were received, and names were entered in the Deccan Queen register - passenger by passenger, age, gender, ticket number, coach, and seat - all in ink, in handwriting. From 7:30 in the morning, the counters would surge.
By 11:30, the train would be full. Nearly 750 to 800 passengers were booked across eight coaches in four hours. The Advance Reservation Period was three days. It was not merely a task. It was a profound learning experience - discipline, resilience, and precision", she recalled.
As the train enters its 96th year towards its century, this Indian Queen rolls into the memories of generations of Mumbaikars and Punekars who grew up travelling in her and knowing her schedule by heart.
