How to travel economically to Vellore from Chennai airport

Nearest international airport near to Vellore is Chennai Airport. When you reach Chennai, you have two ways to reach Vellore – by road or by train (you must disembark at Katpadi railway station). If you hire a taxi to come by road, they can charge you upwards of 1500 rupees so we’ll not talk about it in this write up.

If you come by train, it works out lot cheaper but unfortunately the Chennai central rail station is not near by. I will tell you two ways to take a train and then I’ll explain how you can travel from there to Katpadi.

Once you come out of the airport, walk (or you can take a taxi) up to the local rail station (TIRUSULAM) that is right in front of the airport. From there you travel to Chennai Beach local station (might cost less than 10 rupees) and catch Chennai Beach – Vellore Cantonment train (Train Number 185). Train 185 leaves Chennai Beach station at about 6:00 PM and reaches Katpadi at 9:00 PM. Disadvantage is that there’s only one train at 6:00 PM from this station in a day and also it has no AC coaches if you like to travel by one.

Second option is to catch a train at the Chennai central. For this you take a pre-paid taxi (for Rs. 350/-) to Chennai central and buy a superfast train ticket (Rs. 50/-) and then board any train that is heading towards South India (Bangalore, Trivandrum, and Coimbatore etc). There will be plenty of trains at any given time. Superfast trains will have AC coaches but since you may not have reservation, you should check with conductor about boarding it before hand and then pay him while travelling. It will cost you about Rs. 200/-