New Delhi:
Tejas, Hamsafar, Antodaya and Udaya Express trains are among 30 new services which are part of the new railway timetable. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on thursday launched the new timetable “Train at a Glance”, which will become effective from October 1.
“All these new services of express trains—Tejas, Hamsafar, Antodaya and Udaya—were promised in the Rail Budget. So we are fulfilling our budget promises by incorporating all these services in the new timetable,” Prabhu said, releasing the timetable.
Destinations and schedules of 10 Hamsafar Express, seven Antodaya Express, three each of Uday Express and Tejas Express trains have found place in the new timetable.
The release of new railway timetable was delayed for a month as the routes and destinations of new proposed services announced in the Rail Budget could not be finalised due to various reasons.
“Launching date of the new services will be announced later,” he said.Fares of Tejas and Hamsafar Express trains will be higher than the existing fare structure.
Besides the new services, travel time of 350 existing trains have been reduced, 75 of which have made it to the superfast category. 240 operational halts have been converted into commercial stoppages and the train connectivity to the northeastern states of Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram have found mention in the timetable.
According to the new timetable, Faizabad-Lucknow passenger train has been merged with Saharanpur-Lucknow and would run as a single service between Faizabad and Saharanpur. Also, New Delhi-Bhatinda Shatabdi Express would be extended till Firozpur.
According to the schedule, while Anand Vihar-Gorakhpur Hamsafar Express will be tri-weekly, rest of nine Hamsafar will be weekly service.
Delhi-Chandigarh Tejas Express and Ananad Vihar-Lucknow Tejas Express will run six days a week and Mumbai-Karmali Tejas five days.Apart from these, 36 new pair of trains would also be launched.
The services of some have been introduced in this financial year while some will launched soon- like the 10 pairs of Humsafar trains, seven Antyodaya, three Tejas and three UDAY trains, besides a number of other mail express trains, their extensions, increase in frequency, diversions etc.
The Humsafar service will be the fully AC service with optional catering, Antyodaya is the long-distance unreserved superfast train for common man, Tejas will have all modern on board features like entertainment, wifi and local cuisines, etc and Uday will be an AC double-decker train on the busiest routes.
