The 15955 / 15956 Brahmaputra Mail is a daily train that connects Old Delhi with Dibrugarh. Introduced in 1972 after the construction of the rail section of the Farakka Barrage, the train originally ran as the Tinsukia Mail between Delhi Junction railway station and New Bongaigaon railway stations, with onward meter gauge connection by a train of the same name numbered as 7up and 8 Dn to Guwahati and Tinsukia in the Indian state of Assam. The train was renamed the Brahmaputra Mail after the successful gauge conversion of the New Bongaigaon- Dibrugarh meter gauge lines to broad gauge. Originally ran as 155 dn by 156 up it was originally started by Northeast Frontier Railway which is called NFR in short. Later on, the primary maintenance was transferred to the Delhi Division of the Northern Railway and ran under the numbers 14056up by 14055 dn. The train recently got LHB rake and the primary maintenance went back to NFR with Dibrugarh being the maintenance station. Once the pride of NFR with neon lights in its first class compartments and has eight cushioned sleeper class coaches in the 1970s, the train went to a sharp decline both in priority and facilities with conditioning of its rake worsening. However, with the new LHB rake trying to get its lost glory back. The up train belongs toNortheast Frontier Railway Zone. Northeast Frontier Railways decided it will be running as 15955/15956 Brahmaputra Mail from9 December 2019.
Schedule
15955 departs Dibrugarh every day at 23:25 and arrives at Delhi Junction at 6:05 on the fourth day from departure covering a distance of 2596 km in 54 hrs and 40 mins with an average moving speed of 47 km/h.
15956 departs Old Delhi every day at 23:40 and reaches Dibrugarh at 4:25 on the fourth day covering a total distance of 2596 km in 52 hrs and 45 mins with an average moving speed of 49 km/h.
Coach composition
The train has both AC and Non AC class of accommodation. The composition of this train is
It is runs, from Dibrugarh via New Tinsukia, Mariani, Dimapur, Lumding, Hojai, Guwahati, Kamakhya, Rangiya, Barpeta Road, New Bongaigaon, New Alipurduar, New Cooch Behar, New Jalpaiguri, Kishanganj, Malda Town, Sahibganj, Bhagalpur, Jamalpur, Kiul, Patna, Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Jn., Mirzapur, Prayagraj, Kanpur Central, Tundla, Aligarh to Old Delhi.
Trivia
This is one of the oldest running trains of this zone. This train is known for its amount of defense personnel using this train.
This train was also involved in two major railway disasters in Indian History. One was the bombing of the train between Kokrajhar and New Bongaigaon in December 1996 by Bodo Militants and second was the Gaisal Rail Disaster, a head-on collision between Avadh Assam Express and Brahmaputra Mail.
