The Indian Railways is running 6,369 trips of 380 special trains during the summer season this year, for the convenience of railway travellers and to clear extra rush of passengers.
An average of 13.2 trips per train were run last summer, 16.8 trips per special train are being made in the current year. The major destinations connected are Patna-Secunderabad, Patna-Yesvantpur, Barauni-Muzaffarpur, Delhi-Patna, New Delhi-Katra, Chandigarh-Gorakhpur, Anand Vihar- Patna, Visakhapatnam-Puri-Howrah, Mumbai-Patna and Mumbai-Gorakhpur.
In totality, these 380 special trains making 6369 trips have 25794 General Coaches and 55243 Sleeper Coaches. General Coaches have a capacity of 100 passengers whereas Sleeper Coaches have a capacity of 72 passengers in ICF and 78 in LHB.
In order to cater to the summer rush, all the zonal Railways spread across the country have geared up to run special trips. Through these special trains, connectivity from various states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi is being ensured.
South Western Railway catering to majorly Karnataka region is running maximum trips 1790 this summer season in comparison to 779 trips last year whereas Western Railway catering majorly to the state of Gujarat has also geared up to run 1470 trips in comparison to 438 trips last year. It is also pertinent to mention that this year, South Central Railway is running 784 trips which is 80 trips more than the last year. To deal with the heavy rush in the northern part of the country, North Western Railway is running 400 trips, East Central Railway is running 380 trips. Northern Railway has also planned to run 324 trips this year.
However, neither the number of trains nor the number of trips run by specific special train(s) is static for the entire season. Planning and running of special trains is a continuous process for which inputs are taken from all the communication channels 24x 7 like media reports, Social media platforms, and Railway Integrated helpline number 139, apart from details of waitlist passengers in PRS system to assess the demand of trains on a particular route. Based on this requirement, the number of trains and the number of trips are augmented.
A watch on any malpractices – like cornering of seats, over-charging and touting activity, etc. –is being kept by the team of commercial and RPF Staff.