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Golden Temple Mail

express train in India

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ5579866
Source-derived summary

The 12903 / 12904 Golden Temple SF Mail is a Daily Superfast Mail train operated by the Indian Railways that runs daily between Bandra Terminus (BDTS) in Maharashtra and Amritsar Junction (ASR) in Punjab. It is the fastest daily train from Mumbai to Amritsar. It is named after the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The train has operated with modern LHB coaches since 29 September 2020. Before the Partition of India, it would ferry passengers arriving by Steamer from Europe directly from the Ballard Pier in Bombay to the city of Peshawar on India's North-West Frontier. The train ran as the Frontier Mail between 1928 and 1996. Ice slabs were used to cool first class coaches.

It operates as train number 12903 from Bandra Terminus to Amritsar Junction and as train number 12904 in the reverse direction.

History

With the opening of the Indian Midland Railway's broad-gauge line between Itarsi and Tundla on 1 March 1889, the first through communication on the broad gauge between Bombay and Delhi was established. At the outset, 2 through carriages from Bombay were attached to the East Indian Railway's 1 Up Howrah–Kalka Mail at Tundla.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Golden Temple Mail” is express train in India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Golden, Temple and Mail, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020, 1928, 1996, 1889—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1928-09-01. For this dossier, Golden, Temple and Mail is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “express train in India” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5579866. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1928, 1996 and 1889.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Golden Temple Mail”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Golden Temple Mail primary sources, Golden Temple Mail archive and Golden research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Golden Temple Mail” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.