Puja Specials via Varanasi: Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Kolkata Paths Listed

Railway authorities have announced three pairs of festival special trains touching Varanasi for the puja season, covering Amritsar-Barauni, Ahmedabad-Darbhanga and Banaras-Kolkata services with published stop and day schedules through October and November.

The Amritsar-Barauni pair is numbered 04668 and 04667. Train 04668 Amritsar-Barauni Special will run each Monday from 4 October to 29 November and is listed as passing Varanasi Junction around 5 pm. Train 04667 Barauni-Amritsar Special will run each Tuesday from 6 October to 1 December, with a Varanasi Junction stop around 3:15 pm before continuing toward Amritsar. Both directions give Purvanchal and Punjab-Bihar passengers a fixed weekly window through the junction rather than a one-off pilgrimage special.

The Ahmedabad-Darbhanga pair is numbered 09465 and 09466. Train 09465 Ahmedabad-Darbhanga Special is scheduled on Saturday nights of 17, 24 and 31 October and 7 and 14 November, passing Varanasi Junction around 11:30 pm. Train 09466 Darbhanga-Ahmedabad Special is listed for Mondays 19 and 26 October and 2 and 16 November, departing Varanasi Junction toward Ahmedabad around 1:45 pm. Late-night eastbound and afternoon westbound timings matter for passengers who connect onward from Banaras or Cantt rather than overnighting in the city.

The Banaras-Kolkata weekly special is numbered 05048. It is scheduled each Tuesday from 6 October to 24 November, departing Banaras around 10:45 am, running via Ghazipur City, Chhapra, Jasidih, Durgapur and Bardhaman, and arriving Kolkata around 6:15 am the next day. The service is framed as a Banaras origin for the Kolkata path. Passengers should confirm the exact platform and any Varanasi Junction halt on the day of travel from the official enquiry counters rather than assume a second origin point.

Festival specials exist because ordinary mail and express trains fill early once Navratri and Durga Puja travel peaks. A published day-of-week pattern lets families book return legs with less guesswork. The Amritsar-Barauni Mondays and Tuesdays, the Ahmedabad-Darbhanga Saturday nights and Monday afternoons, and the Banaras-Kolkata Tuesdays together cover three main corridors that feed Varanasi Junction and Banaras station through the puja window.

North Eastern Railway and the railway administration published the schedules on 28 September 2026 for passenger convenience during the season. Charts, coach composition and stoppage minutes can still shift closer to the run dates. Readers planning luggage-heavy travel should treat the announced days and approximate Varanasi timings as the planning base, then recheck the live chart 24 to 48 hours before departure.

For city-side planning, late Saturday night arrivals toward Darbhanga and Monday afternoon departures toward Ahmedabad will load autorickshaw and app-cab demand around the junction at odd hours. Tuesday morning Banaras departures for Kolkata will pull early traffic toward the Banaras station approaches. Weekly Amritsar-Barauni calls around mid and late afternoon sit closer to ordinary long-distance rush.

The Banaras-Kolkata weekly appears on the announced list as 05048 in the Banaras-to-Kolkata direction. The full set for Varanasi passengers on this notice is the three pairs named above: 04668 and 04667, 09465 and 09466, and 05048. Until a further railway notice adds coaches or changes days, those published stops and dates are the passenger story through October and November.