Motivated by atomic response to different initial coherent optical fields, we comparatively studied transient population grating (TPG) induced by successive pulse train. Time delay and pump pulse duration dependence of TPG is achieved by numerically solving the density matrix equations. Results reveal that the creation and erasure of TPG is possible by choosing the appropriate pulse parameters, which is illustrated by Bloch sphere model and quantitative validation. To obtain desired large grating amplitude for rectangular pulse, the allowed pulse duration can be extended to one order wider than that of Gaussian pulse. Population grating can be erased to near zero by a third pulse with time delay by an odd multiple of half the pulse width, and it also can be erased further to recover atom assembly back to the initial state by a fourth pulse with time delay equal to an integer multiple of pulse width. Atomic behaviors excited by different types of pulse presented here may be significant to manipulate TPG during coherent light-matter interaction.