Konkan Railway

The route

The Konkan Railway runs about 739 km along India's west coast, from Roha south of Mumbai to Thokur near Mangaluru, through Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. It follows the narrow strip between the Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, crossing rivers that run west to the sea. A coastal line was surveyed as early as 1920, but the Konkan Railway Corporation was set up only on 19 July 1990, under railway minister George Fernandes and with E. Sreedharan at its head.

Because the line cuts across ridges and valleys, much of it lies in cuttings, on bridges or underground: the corporation counts 91 tunnels with a combined length of about 84.5 km, and 2,286 bridges, 190 of them major. Sections opened from 1993, and the last link, the Pernem tunnel in north Goa, was finished in January 1998. The full line was inaugurated on 26 January 1998. Loose soil, flash floods and tunnel collapses made the work hard, and 74 people died during construction.

Today the broad-gauge line carries express trains between Mumbai, Goa, Mangaluru and Kerala, as well as freight, and since 1999 it has run India's first roll-on roll-off service, carrying loaded lorries on wagons. Electrification of the route was completed by March 2022. Monsoon rain brings landslides and boulder falls, and after fatal derailments in 2003 and 2004 the railway adopted lower monsoon speeds and a separate monsoon timetable, which in 2025 ran from 15 June to 20 October.

What to watch for

1. Zuari and Mandovi bridges

   Soon after Madgaon the train crosses the Zuari, and before Thivim the Mandovi, the two great estuaries of Goa. Their open-web steel through girders, with spans of 124.2 m, are the longest steel spans on the Konkan Railway. Both bridges also carry anemometers, so that the wind on these open crossings near the sea can be measured through the monsoon.

2. Pernem, the last link

   Watch for the tunnels in the far north of Goa. The Pernem tunnel was the final piece of the railway, completed in January 1998, six years after construction began, and only then could trains run the full length. Nine tunnels through soft soil proved the hardest part of the whole project, costing 19 lives and about four years of work.

3. Panval Nadi viaduct

   Near Ratnagiri the train runs out onto a slender concrete deck high above a wooded valley. This is the Panval Nadi viaduct, 420 m long and 64 m high, the tallest on the line. Its prestressed concrete box girder was the first bridge deck in India put in place by incremental launching, pushed out section by section from one end. It remained the country's highest viaduct until 2010.

4. Karbude, 6.5 km of dark

   North of Ratnagiri the screen goes dark for longer than anywhere else on the line. Karbude tunnel, between Bhoke and Ukshi, is about 6.5 km long, the longest of the railway's 91 tunnels. Bhoke station itself sits between two tunnels, so the train passes from one bore to the next with only a short stretch of daylight in between.

5. Watching the weather

   The monsoon the video shows is the railway's hardest season. In 2025 the corporation put 636 trained staff on round-the-clock patrols of vulnerable stretches, read self-recording rain gauges at stations including Madgaon, Kankavli and Ratnagiri, and set flood warnings on river bridges such as the Vashishti near Chiplun. In heavy rain with poor visibility, drivers must keep to 40 km/h.

What you will see

The video, published in July 2023, was recorded from the cabin of the 22230 Vande Bharat Express on its way from Madgaon towards Mumbai during the monsoon. Leaving Madgaon, the train heads north through Goa and crosses two wide estuaries, the Zuari and then the Mandovi, before its stop at Thivim, the station for the Bardez area of North Goa.

North of Thivim the line passes Pernem, whose tunnel completed the railway in 1998, and enters Maharashtra's Sindhudurg district. After the stop at Kankavli the line keeps to the hills behind the coast, with long tunnels such as Berdewadi, about 4 km between Adavali and Vilavade. On the approach to Ratnagiri it crosses the Panval Nadi on the tallest viaduct of the line and passes through Tike tunnel, about 4 km long.

Beyond Ratnagiri comes Karbude tunnel, about 6.5 km between Bhoke and Ukshi and the longest on the railway. Further north the line crosses the Vashishti river between Kamathe and Chiplun before Khed, the last Konkan Railway stop. The Vande Bharat leaves the Konkan Railway at Roha and continues over Central Railway via Panvel and Thane to Mumbai CSMT.

Station by station

1. MadgaonThe main station of south Goa and a junction where South Western Railway's line from Guntakal to Vasco da Gama meets the Konkan Railway. It has six platforms and is where this Vande Bharat begins.
2. ThivimA two-platform station opened in 1997 at Sircaim in Bardez, just off the Mapusa–Bicholim road. It is the train's stop for North Goa, reached after the Zuari and Mandovi river crossings.
3. KankavliA town in Maharashtra's Sindhudurg district, almost 315 km from Roha by rail. The station has two platforms and four tracks, and is the Vande Bharat's first stop after leaving Goa.
4. RatnagiriThe headquarters of the railway's Ratnagiri division, about 7 km from the town and 125 m up. Every Konkan Railway train stops here, and the line's tallest viaduct and longest tunnel lie on either side.
5. KhedA two-platform station serving the town of Khed in Ratnagiri district, about 98 km from Roha. It is the train's last stop on the Konkan Railway before the line hands over to Central Railway at Roha.

Riding it for real

Konkan Railway Corporation runs the line, and its trains are booked through Indian Railways. The 22229/22230 Vande Bharat Express, flagged off on 27 June 2023, covers the 581 km between Mumbai CSMT and Madgaon with stops at Dadar, Thane, Panvel, Khed, Ratnagiri, Kankavli and Thivim. Other trains on the route include the Tejas Express, the Mandovi Express and the Konkan Kanya Express.

Journey times change when the monsoon timetable starts in mid-June, and not every service runs daily. Check Konkan Railway or Indian Railways for current timetables and fares before you travel.

The video is embedded from YouTube and remains on its owner’s channel. Views count toward the original video.