The Indian railways have stepped up to help the thousands of stranded passengers whose flights were affected amid the nationwide IndiGo chaos that has continued for the 5th day.
The Railways have added extra AC coaches to several major interstate trains on Friday. Approximately 116 coaches were added to 37 trains across multiple regions as the number of stranded passengers increased. The trains cover 114 augmented trips nationally and are expected to handle 35,000 passengers per day, and a total of 4,89,288 passengers overall, TOI reported
Plans to introduce new special trains with 18 coaches capable of carrying 30,780 passengers per trip are also underway.
The Southern Railways have the highest number of additions, on 18 trains.
Here are the Southern trains that now have one Three-AC coach each:
- Bengaluru–Agartala Humsafar Express
- Mangaluru–Thiruvananthapuram Central Express
- Bengaluru–Chennai Dr MGR Chennai Express
- Mumbai–Mangaluru Superfast Express
- Mumbai–Mangaluru CST Superfast Express
The Northern Railway has implemented upgrades on eight trains, adding 3AC and Chair Car coaches.
One 3AC coach has been added to both the Jammu Rajdhani (Train No. 12425/12426) and Dibrugarh Rajdhani (Train No. 12423/12424), while an AC Chair Car coach has been introduced in the Chandigarh Shatabdi (Train No. 12045/12046) and Amritsar Shatabdi (Train No. 12029/12030).
The Western Railway has enhanced four high-demand trains by attaching 3AC and 2AC coaches.
Additional coaches have been attached to Train No. 12951 (Mumbai-New Delhi) and Train No. 12957 (Sabarmati-New Delhi) on multiple dates between December 6 and 10. 12952 and 12958, the return trains will also have these coaches.
The East Central Railway added 2AC coaches on the Rajendra Nagar-New Delhi Train No. 12309 for five trip bwteen December 6 and 10.
The East Coast Railway has augmented the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi services (Trains 20817, 20811, 20823) with 2AC coaches on five trips, enhancing connectivity between Odisha and New Delhi.
The Central Railways have also announced that they are introducing seven 'Train on Demand' services to help passengers.
The trains announced are: CSMT-Nagpur, CSMT-Nizamuddin, CSMT-Howrah, Pune-Bangalore, CSMT-Varanasi-Lucknow, Nagpur-Pune and CSMT-Madgaon.
Other special trains include:
- Gorakhpur-Anand Vihar Terminal-Gorakhpur Special (05591/05592) running fom December 7 to 9
- New Delhi-Martyr Captain Tushar Mahajan-New Delhi Reserved Vande Bharat Special (02439/02440), which will run on December 6
- New Delhi-Mumbai Central-New Delhi Reserved Superfast Special (04002/04001), running on December 6 and 7
- One-way Hazrat Nizamuddin-Thiruvananthapuram Central Superfast Special (04080) running on December 6.
Railway officials said that the additional coaches will remain in operation “as long as the situation demands."