New Delhi: The Railways is planning to introduce 200 special trains between October 15 and November 30. These special trains will cater to passengers travelling during the festive season. This information was given Thursday by Railway Board Chairman and CEO VK Yadav. The Railways has currently suspended all regular passenger trains indefinitely. Regular trains have remained suspended since March 22.
The Railways started operations May 12 of 15 pairs of premium Rajdhani special trains connecting Delhi with different parts of India. Then 100 pairs of long-distance trains were introduced June 1. It also started 80 trains additionally September 12.
“We have conducted meetings with the general managers of zones. We have instructed them to speak with local administration and review the status of coronavirus. They have been asked to give us a report. Then we will decide how many trains can be introduced during the holiday season. Our estimate as of now is that we will run around 200 trains, but it is an estimate, the numbers could be more,” said Yadav.
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The top official also said that the Railways has decided to take stock of passenger services on a daily basis depending on the needs of the state governments and the status of the pandemic.
“As far as passenger trains are concerned, the situation now is that we will analyse the requirements of trains. Traffic patterns and corona status of states will be conducted on a daily basis. Wherever there is a need we will run trains,” Yadav informed.
Yadav also said that the occupancy of clone trains is around 60 per cent. The clone trains were introduced by the national transporter in routes with high demand.
“We have started the system of clone trains where every morning we analyse the data on trains through software. Our efforts are to ensure that wherever there is long waitlisting, a clone train is run there,” informed Yadav.
“We have also decided that wherever the clone train is filled, we will run another clone train on the same route to ensure that there are no waitlisted passengers,” he added.