I traveled from Coimbatore to Chennai on Duronto Express in December and would like to share my experience
I boarded in 3CC(Third AC Chair Car), and found the Seats are comfortable, and have push back facilities too. Being an AC compartment, the ride quality was much better when compared to non-ac coaches, also outside sound / train sound is greatly reduced.
The train started from Coimbatore station sharply at the scheduled time. We were given Newspaper(Tamil evening daily) to read
At 3:30 p.m., we are provided
One vegetable sandwich with a tomato sauce sachet
One Frooty
One packet of Wafers
2 chocolates
a cup of cofee / tea
Around 6:30 p.m. tomato soup is served, along with soup sticks and Amul table butter.
Soup quality / Thickness of soup is below average. Also "Salt" pouch is given but no "pepper".
Around 7:30 p.m., veg / non-veg Food as specified in the ticket is served.
Veg:
2 rotis/ chappathi.
1 kurma
slices of cucumber / carrot
1 cup of rice
1 cup of Dal / Sambar
1 cup of Curd
1 Pickle
1 Icecream(Amul)
Again I felt the Dal/ Sambar quality is quite poor. Also quantity of rice is low.
All charges are food items/ snacks are covered in Train Fare itself . No additional charges.
The plus point is Duronto - Fare in 3CC(Chair car) - Costs around Rs.650/-; While 3rd Chair car in Kovai express which also starts around 2:00 p.m. is Rs.471/-. Besides Duronto travel time is one hour lesser than Kovai or other superfast express trains.
So, for an additional Rs.180/-, snacks and dinner are offered in Duronto. This is a non-stop train. The only stop is at Erode junction, that too for loading food, and is not an actual train stop. Being a non-stop train it takes 1 hour less time to reach Chennai, when compared to other super fast trains like Kovai/ Nigiri, which is an added advantage.