Passenger Trains to be back on track from Tuesday

Delhi to resume railway activities

In a major development, Delhi announced the resumption of normal activities as it is all ready to open its railway tracks from May 12, 2020. This comes after 47 days of the lockdown period where the government decided to resume all interstate travel for its railway passengers and not just the migrant workers.

The Railways is slated to run 15 pairs (30 return journeys) of air-conditioned “special trains”, modelled on the Rajdhani which connects 15 major cities with New Delhi. Eight of these (16 return journeys) are from New Delhi to Mumbai, Patna, Kolkata, Dibrugarh, Jammu Tawi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Bhubaneswar and will run daily. Passenger railway trains which were shut for about 50 days, were shut on March 21, 2020, to contain the spread.

The government statement further described the move as “plans to gradually restart passenger train operations,” “Thereafter, Indian Railways shall start more special services on new routes, based on the available coaches for Covid-19 care centres and adequate number of coaches being reserved to enable operation of 300 trains every day as ‘Shramik Special’ for stranded migrants,”

According to sources, this period will be looked at like a trial period to get a true sense of the demand for the inter-state movement and assess how feasible its activities will be considering the outbreak of the COVID-19. The situation is said to be re-evaluated in about a week.

Furthermore, tatkal bookings and waitlists will not be allowed, also, those without any COVID-19 symptoms will be allowed to travel. The passengers are further to be screened at departure and are requested to wear a face mask at all times.

The officials further added that there would be only a few stops, mostly coinciding with operational stoppages. Only Rajdhani-model trains have been allowed as they do not have unreserved coaches, given the need of the hour to maintain social distancing. These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi Station connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi