You know a train is the talk of town when it is the most sought after background for proud selfie moments on a railway station.

The majestic blue Gatiman Express’ engine and 12 sleek AC coaches attracted selfie takers, inquisitive bystanders and some late-but-still excited journos (like me). We ogled at the train not just with our eyes but with our cameras as well.

Although it had done an inaugural trip on April 5 from platform one, when Gatiman was to complete its first public trip to Agra and back, there was a fair amount of confusion about which platform the train would leave from, at Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station. “Nobody knew which platform this train would leave from, even railway employees didn’t know,” said A.K. Verma, who owns a glass-making business and makes weekly trips to Firozabad (the nearest big station is Agra). “I had to ask a lot of people before a coolie told me that it was platform number five.”

Still, by the end of it, when Gatiman Express pulled into the Agra Cantonment station at around 9.55am, Verma was mostly a satisfied customer. “The train’s timings suit me,” he said.

The schedule of the train is in fact Gatiman Express’ chief selling point. It leaves Hazrat Nizamuddin Station at 8.10am and reaches Agra at 9.50am. For the return trip, it leaves Agra at 5.50pm and reaches Delhi at 7.30pm. This gives the day-tripper or those travelling for work a window of around eight hours of sunlit hours in the “City of Love” (the sobriquet for Agra in the train’s announcements).

“If the train is a success, it’s going to be because of its timing,” said Sanjay Verma, who works with a travel agency in Gurgaon. He’d taken the Gatiman Express to see if it was a good option for foreign clients in particular. “This Delhi to Agra route is quite popular,” he said. “This train can be a good second option. Right now, the Shatabdi leaves around six in the morning, so this is a good option for those who do not want to wake up early.”

That, and cleanliness. I hope it wasn’t because of its newness, but fastest or not, Gatiman Express is definitely the most sanitary one in the Indian Railways’ yard. The train has bio-toilets that are clean, with a faint herbal fragrance. The waste is treated before being purged on the tracks, thus reducing corrosion, stinking and messing up of the tracks. Additionally, Gatiman Express provides the best surreptitious smoking experience in its toilets (smoking is not permitted anywhere on Indian Railways, but there is always some private space in the toilet to quench a craving).

Like me, Manish Kumar Pande, a businessman from Delhi, appreciated this unsung quality of Gatiman Express. He could even offer a comparison. “Gomti Express too has chair cars and there are huge mice scrambling all over the floor,” said Pande. “Here they have hygiene. I hope they maintain this, otherwise it’ll end up just like any other train.”

The excitement of being on the “semi-bullet” with its much talked-about menu and many amenities kept most the passengers happy on the journey. There was, however, one set of people on the train who looked even more overwhelmed and excited than the passengers and remained that way till the last disgruntled passenger was off the train. These were the 10 “train hostesses” (one hostess per coach). The white gloves they’d been seen wearing on the inaugural ride were no longer on their persons, but their exuberance hadn’t worn off.

“Please excuse me, sir, if I am not able to answer your questions properly, I am too excited and I have never given media interviews before,” giggled one of the train hostesses, named Neelam, when I asked her what her duties entailed. Ultimately, after some egging, she replied, with true grit, “My work here is to ensure complete customer satisfaction.”

However, a retired government employee, who was sitting next to me in the Executive Chair Car to Agra, was not getting much satisfaction from Gatiman Express.

“I asked them for the menu and they gave me Chair Car menu, twice,” he grumbled. “The Executive Class has a different menu. I am a senior citizen and I pay around Rs. 700 in Shatabdi. Here, I had to pay Rs. 1,500 for this. Bekar hai yeh train. Loot rahe hain.” (“This train is worthless. They are fleecing us.”)

By the time Gatiman Express was making its way back to Delhi, the public mood matched the elderly gentleman’s and I had unofficially rechristened it “Galtiman Express”.

As it neared Hazrat Nizamuddin, in coach C-1, a miffed woman passenger complained to one of the pantry car staff, “Bhaiyya, Swiss Roll toh mila hi nahi. Yeh bagalwale bhaisa’ab ko bhi nahi mila hai.” (“I didn’t get a Swiss Roll. The gentleman next to me also didn’t get it.”) When I crossed the coach again after 10-odd minutes, the case of the conspicuously absent Swiss Roll had inspired a bunch of passengers to gather around the pantry guys, with the first woman threatening to pull the chain if she wasn’t handed a Swiss Roll.

Maybe bringing the locomotive to a grinding halt over confectionery was a slight overreaction, but her disgruntlement was shared by many. And there might be a reason for this, one which puts the blame squarely on my tribe: journalists.

The positive reviews and hype created in the media about Gatiman Express was clearly miles ahead of what the train could actually offer. Rajesh Katra, another businessman from Rohini, was one of the few who realised this. “The newspapers promised a lot, but everything is different here,” he said. “There was cold water oozing out of the omelette served in the morning. Right now the tender coconut water you’ve served is hot. If the train is standing on the platform since morning, why isn’t there some cooling facility? I’m saying you’re a bus. You compare yourself with airlines, but your service does not even compare to that of railways.”

Here’s the truth about Gatiman Express. It’s a normal train, maybe even a good train, but it is overpriced and overhyped, and it is not revolutionary in any sense, technological or otherwise. The Shatabdi, which made its debut around 18 years ago, is just 17 minutes slower than Gatiman Express. Add to it the stoppage Shatabdi takes between Delhi and Agra and you see Gatiman in a slightly different light.

For double the price of a Shatabdi ticket, Gatiman Express gives its Executive Chair Car passengers an extra slice of cake, a bun and an annoying headrest on the top of the seat.

The train is said to be fully WiFi enabled, but, aye! There’s a rub! The internet on train can only be used for the ‘entertainment’ provided by an app called MyFreeTV.in. Owned by Delhi businessman Shyam Sundar’s tech firm Amtrk, the app lets you watch the worst copyright-free movies of Bollywood, The Flop Show by Jaspal Bhatti, some devotional songs and some semi-titillating short films.

What I witnessed on Gatiman Express’ first public journey were hopes being derailed, pride being punctured and expectations being deflated. “Sir, whatever we do, we can’t compete with the Japanese and the Chinese,” said one railway employee. The deflated feeling was evident on the face of man in charge of the pantry car, who had been surrounded by the passengers of C-1. He knew he was not responsible for the missing rolls or absence of WiFi, but he also felt that he had failed his customer. “Customer is always right, sir,” he said. “It’s our fault that the rolls aren’t there.”

He smiled weakly at me and the semi-bullet train neared its destination in Delhi.