Konkan Railway

The Konkan Railway runs down India's west coast from Roha, south of Mumbai, to Thokur near Mangaluru, between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea. The classic ride is the 765 kilometres from Mumbai CSMT to Madgaon in Goa: through 91 tunnels and over some of the line's 2,286 bridges, past paddy fields, river mouths and laterite cliffs.

For four months of the year, the weather writes the timetable. From 15 June to 20 October Konkan Railway runs a separate monsoon timetable, with lower speeds and patrols on the cuttings. The Vande Bharat that reaches Goa in 7 hours 45 minutes the rest of the year takes 10 hours 35 in the rains, and runs three days a week instead of six. It is also the season when the Konkan is at its greenest, and its waterfalls run.

The coast had no railway under British rule. It took a company of its own, owned by the Centre and four states, to build one, and the whole line opened on 26 January 1998.

Trains for Goa leave Mumbai CSMT and run out through Thane and Panvel on Central Railway's lines. The Konkan Railway proper begins at Roha, and from there the line is the corporation's own: single track for most of its length, electrified since 2022, and laid to a ruling gradient of one in 150 so that heavy trains can run fast along a coast of hills and rivers. The day trains are the Vande Bharat, the Tejas Express and the Jan Shatabdi, the last two with glass-roofed Vistadome coaches, and the slower Mandovi Express, which calls at twenty stations.

Down the Konkan

South of Roha the line crosses river after river where they widen towards the sea, and cuts through the spurs of the Ghats between them. Konkan Railway counts 91 tunnels on the route, 84 kilometres of them in all; the longest, at Karbude near Ratnagiri, runs for six and a half. In Ratnagiri district, too, is the Panval Nadi viaduct, 64 metres high, the tallest on the line and the first bridge in India built by incremental launching, pushed out from one bank across the valley. In the cuttings, steel netting holds the rock faces, and in the monsoon there are men on foot watching them.

Ratnagiri, a little over halfway, is where the day trains stop for five minutes. Beyond it the line runs on through Sindhudurg district, past Kudal and Sawantwadi Road, and reaches Goa at Pernem, where a tunnel that kept caving in held up the opening of the whole line until January 1998.

Into Goa

In Goa the surveyors went out on motorcycles, thirty teams testing sixteen possible routes, and the engineers then went house to house to find a way round each home. Only 35 houses were disturbed, and Goa has more curves than any other part of the line. The trains call at Thivim and Karmali and cross the Mandovi and the Zuari on steel spans of 124 metres, the longest on the line, before they pull into Madgaon. The line runs on to Karwar and Mangaluru; the Mangaluru Express from CSMT goes all the way.

Konkan Railway keeps two timetables. The regular one runs from 21 October to 14 June; the slower monsoon timetable is in force from 15 June to 20 October (the 2026 dates).

Mumbai to Madgaon, 21 October to 14 June

Madgaon to Mumbai, 21 October to 14 June

The Tejas Express runs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays: 22119 leaves CSMT at 05:50 and reaches Madgaon at 15:00, and 22120 leaves Madgaon at 15:35 and reaches Dadar at 23:30. Overnight, the Konkan Kanya Express leaves CSMT at 23:02 and reaches Madgaon at 09:45 the next morning.

In the monsoon, 15 June to 20 October

The trains run slower and some run less often. The Vande Bharat runs only three days a week, leaving CSMT at 05:25 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and reaching Madgaon at 16:00; it returns from Madgaon at 12:20 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, reaching CSMT at 22:30. The Jan Shatabdi leaves CSMT at 05:10 and reaches Madgaon at 16:40, and the Mandovi Express leaves at 07:10 and arrives at 21:55. The Tejas runs three days a week.

Times are from Konkan Railway's own train schedule for the monsoon timetable and from IRCTC for the trains from 21 October — as of October 2026. Check your train on Konkan Railway's train schedule (opens in a new tab) or IRCTC (opens in a new tab) before travelling.

Tickets are sold by IRCTC, Indian Railways' booking service, online and in its app. Each ticket is for a reserved seat or berth on a named train: Chair Car or Executive Chair Car on the Vande Bharat, second class, Chair Car or the glass-roofed Vistadome on the Jan Shatabdi, and sleeper berths on the Mandovi Express.

Book early. Two weeks before a Monday in late October 2026, the Vande Bharat's Chair Car was fourteen places into its waiting list and the Jan Shatabdi's Vistadome five. The fares below are those IRCTC quoted for that day, one way from Mumbai CSMT to Madgaon.

No rail pass covers the Konkan Railway. Interrail and Eurail are European schemes, and India is not among the countries in Interrail's list of covered railway companies. Indian Railways' own pass for foreign visitors, the Indrail Pass, was withdrawn by Railway Board order on 19 September 2017. Every journey is bought as a ticket for a named train, through IRCTC.

A pass would not help here anyway. Even the Vande Bharat's Executive Chair Car costs a few thousand rupees; a confirmed seat is what to plan around, so book as soon as your dates are fixed.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's list of railway companies (opens in a new tab) and the Indrail Pass (opens in a new tab).

Each of these is reached from a station on the line. Ratnagiri is the base for the Konkan half of the coast, Panaji and Old Goa for the Goan half; break the journey for a night or two and take the next day's train on.

The morning trains from Mumbai reach Goa in the afternoon, in time to settle into Panaji's old quarter before dark.

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