Indian Railways has announced operation of 763 puja special trains, covering 10,782 trips across various zones, to manage the surge in passenger demand during the upcoming festivals. Officials said that special trains will provide additional capacity and ensure smoother travel for passengers heading home to celebrate Diwali and Chhath. While some of these special trains are already in operation, others will start plying in the coming days with rise in demand. These trains will run both on a daily and weekly basis. Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday said the operation of more special trains became possible because of the expansion of capacity of the Railway lines on high-density routes. “A record number of special trains have been arranged for Chhath and Diwali. This has been made possible by a significant capacity increase. The Cabinet is regularly approving new tracks,” said Vaishnaw after inspecting the holding area at New Delhi Railway Station. “Notifications for approximately 10,700 trains (services) have been issued. Additionally, 150 trains, or approximately 2,000 services, have been designated as unreserved. This takes the total number of special trains (services) to over 12,000 this year,” he added. According to official data available with the Ministry of Railways, the Northern Railway (NR) will see the highest number of trips — 1,925 — across 52 trains, followed closely by the East Central Railway (ECR) with 1,324 journeys through 74 trains. Both of these zones cover areas like Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the passenger movement is particularly high during festivals. The Central Railway (CR), headquartered in Mumbai, has also deployed 68 trains for 1,299 trips. Other major contributors include South Central Railway (SCR) with 1,015 trips, North Western Railway (NWR) with 942 trips, and Western Railway (WR) with 1,198 trips. Zones such as Eastern Railway (ER), South Eastern Railway (SER), and North East Frontier Railway (NFR), too, have ramped up their operations, collectively accounting for more than 900 trips. This is meant to cater to the heavy festive rush towards Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, and other states. The steps taken by the 17 railway zones will help in handling passenger flow between major metros and smaller regional destinations, officials said. Many of these special services will run with both reserved and unreserved coaches to accommodate all categories of travellers, the officials added. Some special trains like Puri-Patna special train, Bhubaneswar-Yesvantpur, Jhajha-Danapur, Howrah-Raxaul, Kanpur Central-Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminal, Charlapalli-Naharlagun, Gorakhpur-Asansol etc. are already in operation. Tickets for these can be booked both in online and offline mode.
