BHUBANESWAR: Now the wait is over. Passengers from western Odisha need not to come Bhubaneswar or Cuttack to board Bhubaneswar-Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express as the Railways will run this train via Sambalpur City once a week with effect from Saturday. The return train will start from Delhi on Sundays.It was a longstanding demand of people from western part of the state. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan had earlier requested railway minister Piyush Goyal to run the train via the western Odisha city. Later on September 27 last year, the railway minister had taken the decision to run the sought-after train between Delhi and Bhubaneswar via Sambalpur.According to its schedule, Rajdhani Express (train number 20817) will leave Bhubaneswar at 7.10 am on every Saturday and reach New Delhi at 10.40 am on Sundays. In the return direction, this express train (20818) will leave New Delhi at 5.05 pm on every Sunday and arrive at Bhubaneswar at 8.35 pm on Mondays, said East Coast Railway (ECoR) sources.This train will have stoppages at Cuttack, Angul, Sambalpur City, Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Chakradharpur, Anara, Gomoh, Gaya, Mughalsarai and Kanpur Central between Bhubaneswar and New Delhi from both the directions.The train will arrive at Sambalpur City station at 11.58 am and leave the station after two minutes. The journey time between Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur City is four hours and 48 minutes. The return train will reach the western Odisha station at 3.15 pm on Monday, said the official sources.This train will halt at Cuttack, Angul, Sambalpur City and Jharsuguda for two minutes only, but it will stop at Rourkela for 25 minutes. Official sources said 121 tickets have been booked from three stations (Sambalpur City- 37, Jharsuguda-25 and Rourkela- 59) till Friday afternoon for the maiden journey.The train will be flagged off by Dharmendra Pradhan and minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha through video conferencing from Railway Board, New Delhi, on Saturday.After introduction of Rajdhani Express via Sambalpur City, the Railways will cancel the Rajdhani services via Bhadrak and Adra on every Saturdays from Bhubaneswar and on every Sundays from New Delhi, sources said.

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