India Winter Fog Cuts Delhi Northeast Rail Links

Published on Nov 26, 2025, 1:54 pm CST

9 min read

Key points

Northeast Frontier Railway will cancel or thin at least 14 long distance trains between December 1, 2025 and March 3, 2026 to manage winter fog
Complete suspensions include the Dibrugarh to Chandigarh Express, Kamakhya to Gaya Express, and Kamakhya to Anand Vihar Terminal Express on key Delhi and plains corridors
Midweek cancellations for New Jalpaiguri to New Delhi and Sikkim Mahananda Expresses will cut direct rail options for Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Dooars access
East Central Railway is cancelling 24 long distance trains on overlapping routes, further tightening capacity between the Hindi heartland, Delhi, and the Northeast
Travelers heading for Assam, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Northeast India should expect fewer seats, longer routings, and greater reliance on flights into Guwahati, Bagdogra, and Kolkata
Indian Railways is pairing cancellations with GPS based fog safety devices and slower speeds to keep the remaining winter timetable more reliable

Impact

Where Impacts Are Most Likely: The sharpest cuts are on Delhi and Anand Vihar Terminal links to Kamakhya, Dibrugarh, New Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Malda Town, and Gaya, plus overlapping East Central Railway routes
Best Times To Travel: Daytime departures on surviving trains and midweek flights into Guwahati, Bagdogra, and Kolkata are likely to be more reliable than tight overnight rail connections
Onward Travel And Changes: Travelers should add extra buffer between trains and onward flights or permits, and be ready to break journeys with overnight stops in Delhi, Kolkata, or Guwahati
Ticketing And Availability: Popular Delhi to Northeast India trains will sell out earlier as cancellations push demand onto fewer services, so advance booking and waitlist monitoring become more important
What Travelers Should Do Now: Anyone planning winter overland routes to the Himalaya or Northeast India between December 2025 and early March 2026 should recheck train numbers, dates, and routings and line up flight backed alternatives

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India winter fog rail cancellations between Delhi and the eastern plains will thin some of the most important overnight links to Assam, the Himalayan foothills, and Northeast India from December 1, 2025, through early March 2026. Indian Railways and the Northeast Frontier Railway zone have confirmed that a mix of full suspensions and cut frequency will hit at least a dozen long distance trains on the Delhi to Kamakhya, Dibrugarh, New Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduar corridors, while East Central Railway is pulling a further 24 trains across overlapping routes. That means fewer direct options for travelers heading from the capital to launch points for Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Assam tours, plus more pressure on surviving trains and on flights into the main Northeast gateways.

The core change is that Indian Railways has moved beyond vague "fog season" warnings to publish precise train numbers, dates, and weekly patterns for cancellations between December 1, 2025, and March 3, 2026. For travelers, that turns an annual annoyance into a concrete capacity cut on some of the most useful overnight trains connecting Delhi and Anand Vihar Terminal with the eastern plains, the Brahmaputra valley, and the Northeast frontier states.

Which Long Distance Trains Are Affected

On the Northeast Frontier Railway side, several entire train pairs will vanish from the timetable for most of the winter fog window. Official releases summarised by regional outlets confirm that the Dibrugarh to Chandigarh Express, train 15903, will be cancelled from December 1, 2025, to February 27, 2026, while its counterpart from Chandigarh to Dibrugarh, train 15904, will not run from December 3, 2025, to March 1, 2026. The Kamakhya to Gaya Express, train 15620, is cancelled from December 1, 2025, to February 23, 2026, and the Gaya to Kamakhya direction, train 15619, is cancelled from December 2, 2025, to February 24, 2026.

Kamakhya to Anand Vihar Terminal Express, train 15621, will not operate from December 4, 2025, to February 26, 2026, and the Anand Vihar Terminal to Kamakhya return, train 15622, is suspended from December 5, 2025, to February 27, 2026. Together, those full cancellations cut multiple direct links between the Delhi area and Kamakhya and Dibrugarh, two of the main railheads for travel into Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya.

Beyond complete suspensions, NFR is also thinning service on several trains that serve classic tourism corridors. The Sikkim Mahananda Express between Alipurduar and Delhi, trains 15483 and 15484, will lose midweek runs, as will the New Jalpaiguri to New Delhi Express, trains 12523 and 12524, which are cancelled on specific days between early December and late February. Those cuts directly affect travelers using New Jalpaiguri as the rail gateway for Darjeeling, Sikkim, and the Dooars.

Other long distance routes such as the Avadh Assam Express between Dibrugarh and Lalgarh will see their trips reduced, further complicating overland loops that combine Rajasthan and the Northeast. In parallel, East Central Railway is cancelling 24 more long distance trains, including services linking Malda Town, Prayagraj, Dehradun, and Amritsar with Delhi and the eastern states, for the same December 1, 2025, to March 3, 2026 window. Taken together, more than 40 named trains will either vanish for weeks at a time or run fewer days, a material reduction in winter rail capacity across North and Northeast India.

How This Changes Popular Itineraries

For many international visitors and domestic travelers, the most visible impacts will be on a few classic patterns. One is the Delhi to Northeast India rail leg that often starts a loop through Assam, Meghalaya, or Arunachal Pradesh. With Kamakhya to Anand Vihar and Kamakhya to Gaya services cancelled for most of December, January, and February, it becomes harder to secure a single seat overnight train from the Delhi region into the Brahmaputra valley.

Another is the Delhi to New Jalpaiguri corridor that feeds trekkers and leisure travelers into Darjeeling and Sikkim. Midweek cancellations on the New Jalpaiguri to New Delhi Express and on the Sikkim Mahananda Express mean fewer direct options, and surviving trains on other days of the week will likely fill earlier and show longer waitlists.

Travelers using multileg itineraries, for example Delhi to Gaya to Kamakhya to Shillong, will find that gaps in one segment can force an overnight in a junction city instead of a same day connection. In some cases, entire itineraries that once fit neatly into overnight rail segments will now need to be rebuilt around domestic flights and shorter local trains.

Wider Winter Fog Pattern Across North India

The NFR measures sit inside a broader national response to increasingly severe winter fog forecasts. East Central Railway's 24 train cancellations across Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi are explicitly tied to visibility concerns on busy sections like the Prayagraj to Tundla corridor. Other zones are adjusting timetables, capping speeds, and warning passengers that delays of several hours are possible on long distance trains when fog is thickest.

At the same time, Indian Railways is rolling out more technology to keep the remaining trains safer and slightly faster in low visibility. In the North Eastern Railway and NFR zones, officials report hundreds of GPS based fog safe devices being installed in locomotives, reflective strips added to signal posts and level crossing barriers, and upgrades to automatic signalling so that drivers can see and respond to signals even when dense fog hides them from view. These devices normally allow a modest increase in safe maximum speed compared with traditional fog working, but they do not remove the need for selective cancellations on the most vulnerable routes.

Alternatives For Reaching The Northeast And Himalayan Gateways

For travelers who already hold tickets on cancelled trains, the first step is to check the precise train number and date in the Railway Board and NFR notices or in trusted aggregators, then rebook onto surviving services on different days or via alternative junctions. If you planned to travel from Delhi to New Jalpaiguri or Alipurduar on a day when the Sikkim Mahananda or New Jalpaiguri to New Delhi Express is cancelled, you may be able to shift to a different day of the week, route via Kolkata, or combine a shorter train with a domestic flight.

Air options will become more important, especially for tight itineraries. Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (GAU) in Guwahati, Bagdogra Airport (IXB), and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (CCU) in Kolkata all offer relatively dense domestic schedules from Delhi and other metros, and can stand in for the lost overnight trains when time matters more than budget. However, seats around Christmas and New Year will be in high demand, so travelers should book earlier than usual and leave more time between flights and any onward local transport.

Mixed itineraries, where a traveler flies into Guwahati or Bagdogra, then uses shorter regional trains or road transfers into hills or tea country, will often be more reliable than attempting a long chain of winter overnight trains. The same logic applies to pilgrims and backpackers stringing together Delhi, Varanasi, Gaya, and the Northeast, who may now need to insert overnight stays at junctions like Kolkata instead of relying on back to back night trains.

Adept Traveler's recent coverage of ash related India to Gulf flight disruption shows how quickly a single structural factor can reshape routes in and out of India. Winter fog related train cancellations are a different problem, but they similarly push flexible travelers toward mixed air and rail planning and away from just in time connections across multiple modes.

Background: Why Indian Railways Cancels Trains For Fog

Indian Railways has long treated thick winter fog across the northern plains as a separate operating regime. In low visibility, trains must slow down, signal sighting distances shrink, and the risk of overshooting or missing signals rises. Historically, railways deployed extra staff to act as fog signalmen along the track and slashed speeds, sometimes down to 60 kilometers per hour or less, which made already long journeys even longer and created huge knock on delays.

The recent strategy, visible in the 2025 to 2026 plans, is to concentrate pain into a defined set of cancellations for the foggiest months, while pairing those cuts with better signalling standards and fog safe devices so that the services that do run can operate more predictably. NFR's own statement frames the December 1 to March 3 cuts as "proactive measures" to maintain safety and punctuality, an idea echoed in East Central Railway communications.

For travelers, that tradeoff means that while overall choice shrinks, the odds of a surviving train arriving broadly on time may be better than in older winters when almost everything ran, but many trains arrived 8 to 14 hours late.

Practical Planning Tips

Anyone planning safaris, trekking trips, homestays, or heritage tours in Northeast India or the Himalayan foothills between December 1, 2025, and early March 2026 should treat rail as a useful but constrained backbone rather than a flexible on the day option. Check train numbers and dates directly against the NFR and East Central Railway lists, then build in one or two extra days of slack around time sensitive events such as guided departures, permit appointments, or international flights home.

Where possible, avoid same day connections between long haul flights and overnight trains during the peak fog window. Instead, consider flying into Delhi, Kolkata, or Guwahati, spending a night there, then taking a morning or midday train into the hills or plains the next day when delays are easier to absorb. Mixed air and rail itineraries may cost more, but they can also reduce the risk of being stranded in a junction station when your one critical overnight train is suspended for the fog season.

As always, keep a close eye on advisories, recheck status in the days before departure, and lean on flexible tickets where possible. Winter fog in North India is a predictable seasonal challenge, but this year's specific India winter fog rail cancellations make it even more important to do detailed route planning rather than assuming the traditional long distance trains will all be there.