Dudhwa National Park to offer safari by rail for an exciting experience

With a state-of-the-art special Vista dome tourist train that started running between Mailani and Bichhiya on Sunday, visitors and wildlife enthusiasts can now take in an immersive safari experience in the Dudhwa and Katarniaghat forests, complete with the trumpeting of elephants, the roaring of tigers, the graceful leaps of deer, and the playful antics of dolphins.

The train will travel 170 kilometers in roughly four hours and twenty-five minutes on Saturdays and Sundays, twice a week. Before arriving in Bichhiya at 10.30 am, it will depart from Mailani at 6:05 am and travel through Bhira, Palia, Dudhwa, Belrayaan, and other picturesque locations. After that, it will leave Bichhiya at 11.45 am and arrive back in Mailani at 4.10 pm. Each passenger on the Vistadome coach must pay Rs 265. There are 53 seats available on the train.

“This is a special move by the railways to promote tourism, especially for wildlife enthusiasts,” Lalit Kumar Verma, the field director of Dudhwa, told HT. This is a novel idea, and we hope it will be well received this time around. Both Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary and Dudhwa National Park are currently closed for the monsoon season, but the park is expected to reopen on November 5 instead of November 15, according to Verma. “We anticipate that when the park reopens on November 5, visitors will love this new train service. Wildlife enthusiasts will be able to take in the region’s abundant biodiversity thanks to this early reopening, and the new train will enhance their journey,” he said.

With WiFi, music systems, and charging stations at each seat, the Vista dome coach provides a luxurious experience and is fully air-conditioned. The expansive windows offer sweeping views of the jungle. The experience is enhanced by the train’s design, which features paintings of forests and wildlife.

The rich biodiversity of Katarniaghat Forest is well-known. Along with hundreds of bird species, visitors can see rare vulture species like the Red-Headed King Vulture and Eurasian Griffon. A healthy population of crocodiles, tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, and deer can also be found in the forest. Along with witnessing numerous rare birds that travel thousands of miles to visit the Geruwa River’s banks in the winter, tourists can also take in the fun of the dolphins in the river. The Amazon of Katarnia is the name given to the Geruwa River, which rises in Nepal and flows into the KWS through eight channels.