Friday 17 April, 2009

Railways to run 4500 train services this summer

NEW DELHI: Gearing up for the anticipated summer rush, Railways have pooled together its vast resources to run more than 4,500 train services
during the season after getting a nod from the Election Commission.

A senior railway ministry official said, as many as 90 pairs of summer special trains would be put into operation between April and June in 13 out of the 16 railway zones, providing more than 4,500 services to passengers, up from 3,600 run last year.

The special trains would also include full "AC trains", he said.

Central Railways would be offering the highest number of 1170 services and it would be followed by Northern Railways which would run over 1040 services. South Western Railway would provide 392 services, the official said.

Special trains have consistently yielded good revenues to railway coffers, with almost all the services running to capacity over the years.

The popularity of few of the services have even prompted the administration to extend it beyond the intended season and make them a permanent fixture in the Railways time table.

Northern Railways alone earned over Rs 7 crore during festive season last year by running such trains, which included special Satabdis and Rajdhanis.

"Based on demand, we would run Shatabdi special between Delhi and Amritsar and a Rajdhani service between Delhi and Guwahati," the official said.

The railway official said South Western Railways would be running 392 services, while the Southern Railway would run 336 special trains.

Most of these trains would touch the metros, religious and tourist towns that witness good crowd during summer vacations.

East Coast Railway, for example, would be running special services between Howrah and the holy town of Puri, thronged by thousands during the period.

Western Railways and North Eastern Railways would run 286 and 222 summer special services respectively while South Central Railways and Northeast Frontier Railways would run 202 and 104 services respectively.

Eastern Railway, on the other hand, has decided to run 82 specials and South Eastern Railway has decided to run 18 such train services. West Central and East Coast Railway would run 78 special trains each, the official said.

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