New Delhi: The Indian Railways will operate 80 more trains on different routes across the country from September 12 to meet the rising demand.
These trains include a Vande Bharat Express, a Shatabdi, a weekly Shramik Special and ‘clones’ of trains that have heavy demand, to clear waiting lists.
Two of these trains will be to and from Odisha’s Puri.
The 08425 Puri to Durg Express will run daily, leaving Puri at 6.30 pm and reaching Durg at 11.55 am. On return journey, the 08426 Durg to Puri Express will set off from Durg at 4.10 pm and reach Puri at 9.15 am.
The Puri-Ahmedabad-Puri train will be a weekly service. The 08405 Puri-Ahmedabad Express will leave Puri at 6.20 pm on Wednesday and reach Ahmedabad at 7.25 am on Friday. On the reverse route, the 08406 Ahmedabad-Puri Express will start from Ahmedabad at 6.40 pm on Friday and reach Puri at 8.10 am on Sunday.
“The average occupancy of the trains running right now has risen to 80-85 per cent. Some trains are running with waiting lists. So we have decided to run 80, or 40 pairs of additional trains,” Chairman and CEO of Railway Board VK Yadav said on Saturday.
“For any train whose waiting lists are for over 10-12 days, we will run an additional ‘clone train’,” Yadav informed.
The bookings for these trains will start on September 10.
Here is the list of the new trains:
Two Vande Bharat Express trains will run from Delhi to Varanasi while the weekly Shramik Special has been scheduled between Valsad (Gujarat) and Muzaffarpur (Bihar).
“Our endeavour will be to keep monitoring the occupancy patterns of the trains, so that whenever we witness a surge in demand for a particular train leading to waiting lists, we will run a clone train there to clear the rush,” Yadav said.
“We have selected these trains keeping the prevailing demand pattern in mind. Migrant labourers and others have been travelling on these routes,” he said.
