Shatabdi Express () are a series of fast passenger trains operated by the Indian Railways. These are day trains and mostly return to their origin station the same day. The trains run at a maximum permissible speed of depending on the infrastructure on the corresponding route, with the Rani KamalapatiâÂÂNew Delhi Shatabdi Express achieving the maximum permissible speed of .
The name "Shatabdi" means century in Sanskrit and the first Shatabdi Express train was announced on 10 July 1988 by then railways minister Madhavrao Scindia to commemorate the birth centenary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister and plied between New Delhi and Gwalior. The first Shatabdi, at that time the fastest train of the country, ran at a maximum speed of . The maximum speed was increased to between Tughlakabad and Agra Cantonment on 15 February 2006, and it was the fastest train in India till the introduction of the Gatiman Express in 2016.
Shatabdi Express trains offer fast connectivity between major cities with only a few intermediate stops and can run at a maximum speed of . Passengers are provided with on-board catering. Onboard entertainment systems are available in select trains providing content via satellite. Seats in Shatabdi Express have to be reserved in advance as there is no unreserved accommodation, unlike most of the other trains in India. Reservation is allowed until up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time and the seats are auto allocated by the reservation system. Dynamic pricing is applicable on the fares.
As Shatabdi Express are day-trains and return to the station of origin the same day, coaches have only seats and not berths. They are fully air-conditioned and the trains have multiple AC Chair Car coaches and most of them have one or two coaches of Executive Class seating. Indian Railways offers Anubhuti class seating and Vistadome coaches offering large windows, transparent roofing, and rotatable seats in select trains. The trains used to operate on specialized coaches manufactured by Integral Coach Factory, Chennai with the older coaches now been replaced with newer LHB rakes on all the trains. The trains are hauled by various diesel or electric locomotives diesel locomotives like WDP-4 , WDG-4 , WDM-3A , WDM-3D and a new specialized high speed locomotive class WAP-7HS and WAP-5 with a maximum speed of for hauling Shatabdi express trains was introduced in 2019.
, there are 21 operational pairs of Shatabdi express trains.
# Name of an intermediate station may be written if the route is not the shortest or to distinguish between more than one Shatabdi route irrespective of present and past routes.