Shatabdi Express (lit. 'Century Express') are a series of fast passenger trains operated by Indian Railways. Shatabdi Express are day trains and mostly return to their origin station the same day. The trains were first introduced in 1988 and were named 'Shatabdi', meaning 'century', to commemorate the birth centenary of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The trains run at a maximum permissible speed of 110–150 km/h (68–93 mph) with the Rani Kamalapati–New Delhi Shatabdi Express achieving the maximum permissible speed of 150 km/h (93 mph) between Tughlakabad and Bilochpura Agra.

The name "Shatabdi" means century in Sanskrit and the first Shatabdi Express train was announced on 10 July 1988 by then Railways Minister Madhavrao Scindia to commemorate the birth centenary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and plied between New Delhi and Jhansi Junction.^[1]

Shatabdi Express trains offer fast connectivity between major cities with only a few intermediate stops and can run at a maximum speed of 150 km/h (93 mph).^[2][3][4] They are fully air-conditioned and passengers are provided with on-board catering.^[5] Onboard entertainment systems are available in select trains providing content via satellite.^[6]

Seats in Shatabdi Express have to be reserved in advance as there is no unreserved accommodation, unlike most of the other trains in India.^[7] Reservation is allowed until up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time and the seats are auto allocated by the reservation system.^[8][9] Dynamic pricing is applicable on the fares.^[10]

As Shatabdi Express are day-trains and return to the station of origin the same day, coaches have only seats and not berths. All of these trains have multiple AC Chair Car coaches and one or two coaches of Executive Class seating. Indian Railways offers Anubhuti class seating and Vistadome coaches offering large windows, transparent roofing, and rotatable seats in select trains.^[11] The trains used to operate on specialized coaches manufactured by Integral Coach Factory, Chennai with the older coaches now been replaced with newer LHB rakess on all the trains.^[12] The trains are hauled by various diesel or electric locomotives and a new specialized high speed locomotive class WAP-7HS with a maximum speed of 180 km/h (110 mph) for hauling Shatabdi express trains was introduced in 2019.^[13]