Meet Rudrastra: Indian Railways Longest Train, Longer Than Platforms Of Hubballi, Gorakhpur Junction; Its Length Is…

Indian Railways runs thousands of trains daily, including freight trains. The public transporter holds many unique records – be it the longest platforms or the longest train length. In the past few years, the Indian Railways has been focusing on increasing its revenue from both passenger and freight operations. With this approach, the public transporter has time and again introduced goods trains with multiple wagons. 

Longest Train

The Indian Railways on Thursday shared a video of its longest train. The train is longer than Indian Railways’ longest platforms – Hubbali Junction (1.5 kms) and Gorakhpur Junction (1.3kms).

Total Length

In a video shared by the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the train can be seen chugging on a bridge. The minister captioned the video, “‘Rudrastra’ – Bharat’s longest freight train (4.5 km long)”. The train is so far the longest train in India with a total length of 4.5 kms. 

‘Rudrastra’ – Bharat’s longest freight train (4.5 km long) pic.twitter.com/Ufk2MFnpfl
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) August 8, 2025

354 Wagons, Seven Engines

The train was formed using six standard-length rakes. It has a total of 354 wagons and was powered by seven locomotives or engines, with two of them attached at the front to pull the load. The train travelled from Ganjkhwaja to Garhwa Road, covering a distance of around 200 kms at an average speed of 40 km/h.

Higher Capacity

The East Central Railway which was responsible for running the train said that the successful operation of ‘Rudrastra’ is an example of Indian Railways’ higher working capacity, coordination between departments and apt management.

Space Saver

It said that the operations of such trains will increase both the speed and capacity of freight transportation. “If these goods trains were run separately, then six different routes and crews would have to be arranged for all of them. Running together as Rudrastra will save time significantly and will also provide space for running more trains,” said the zonal railways.

Surpasses Super Vasuki

Notably, this is not the first time that the public transporter has come up with a longer goods train. Earlier in June this year, the IR unveiled Super Vasuki, then India’s longest and heaviest freight train with a length of approximately 3.5 kilometres and 295 wagons. In 2021, the South East Central Railway ran Vasuki goods train with five full rakes combined as one, forming a length of around 3.5 km.