As the biggest festival of the state, Durga Puja is round the corner, the Railway authorities are putting efforts to increase the number of long distance special trains to cater to the inadvertent Puja rush.

Even as a decision on the resumption of much awaited local trains is yet to be taken, efforts are being made by the Railways to increase the number of special trains within this month.

Advertisement

The Railway Board yesterday issued a list of 39 pairs of additional numbers of special trains that are to be introduced at an early convenient date from different parts of the country.

Of the total 39 pairs, five are to be run by the two major zonal railways in the stateEastern and South Eastern Railway.

The South Eastern Railway which is running nine pairs of trains now, recently extended the stoppages in HowrahSecunderabad-Howrah special and increased the frequency of Howrah – Mumbai CSMT Special and HowrahAhmedabad Special trains. In addition, the zonal railway is slated to have four additional pairs of long distance trains in the forthcoming weeks.

The additional trains to and from the state to be run under the SER will be ShalimarSecunderabad Special, Santragachi-Chennai Special, Howrah-Yesvantpur Special and Howrah-Pune Special trains.

The already operating Howrah-Yesvantpur Special is a Duronto train while the upcoming train service will be an air-conditioned special train.

While the Eastern Railway, which added special train services between Silchar and Trivandrum Central, Sealdah– New Delhi–Sealdah Superfast AC Special, Howrah–Jamalpur–Howrah Special and Malda–Delhi– Malda Special.

According to sources in ER, the number of additional long distance special train services to be introduced in this month might go to 20.