“A comfortable railway journey of seventeen and a half hours brought us to the capital of India, which is likewise the capital of Bengal, Calcutta.” I assume they must have traveled on the 13152 Sealdah Express which is supposed to take fourteen hours—although yesterday it took sixteen hours.
(The Indian Equator p 99)

February 6 Thursday – The Clemens party left Benares at 1:28 p.m. [NB 36 TS 39]. It was a seventeen and a half hour train ride from Benares to Calcutta. Parsons writes,

He was pleased with his car, which possessed not one iota of an American sleeper’s “luxury and
magnificence,” yet was more comfortable with “plenty of air, and a night’s rest” ahead. But when he
reached Macaulay’s “city of palaces” and British supremacy, he kept to his room in the Hotel
Continental for about thirty hours with a cold picked up on the train [“MT India” 85].

February 7 Friday – The Clemens party changed trains at Moghalserais at 2 a.m. and arrived in Calcutta at 7 a.m. [NB 36 TS 39] .
(Fears)