In good news for rail passengers, the Railways on Tuesday announced that it will operate 392 Festival Special trains between October 20 and November 30 to cater to the demand in view of the upcoming festive season.
These festival special trains will be mostly equipped with third AC coaches and the fares applicable will be those of special trains, said Indian Railways. The timing of these trains will be as per regular trains.
The Railway ministry in a statement said that the decision was taken as the national carrier is anticipating a passenger rush during the upcoming festive season.
The special trains will be run for destinations such as Kolkata, Patna, Varanasi, Lucknow among others to cater to the growing demand in the ensuing holiday period of Durga Puja, Dussehra, Diwali and Chhatt puja, it said.
Zonal Railways will notify their schedule well in advance.
Here's the full list of Festival Special trains
Till now, the railways has pressed into service more than 300 mail/express trains which are now running regularly across the country.
These new festival special trains will operate only till November 30 and will not have a continued run, officials said.
In an order issued on Tuesday, the Railway Board said these festival special trains will be operated at a speed of 55 kmph.
Earlier, the Northern Railways on Monday had said that it will start the services of 40 more trains, including the Shatabdi Express, Duranto and Rajdhani Express.
Northern Railways has decided to operate the Hazrat Nizamuddin-Pune AC Duronto Express Special, New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Special, New Delhi-Dehradun Shatabdi Special and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-New Delhi AC Express Special from October 15.
The Railways had suspended the operations of all passenger, mail and express trains from March 25 when the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed.
It started operating Shramik Special trains for migrant labourers from May 1 and 15 pairs of special air-conditioned trains from May 12.
Subsequently, 100 pairs of train services started on June 1, followed by 80 more trains from September 1 and 40 pairs of clone trains from September 12.
