IRCTC opens booking for special trains, Howrah-Delhi tickets sold within 10 minutes

IRCTC Special Trains Ticket Booking: Despite delay all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold within the first 10 minutes IRCTC's website irctc.co.in.

Indian Railways is gradually restarting passenger trains operation from May 12.

IRCTC Special Trains Ticket Booking: Bookings for 15 special trains began Monday evening on The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website two hours behind the scheduled time. However, despite delay, all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold within the first 10 minutes, news agency PTI reported. The train is scheduled to begin its journey Tuesday from Howrah at 5:05 pm.

As per the ticket availability on the website, all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi special trains were also sold by 6.30 pm. Earlier, the IRCTC website went unresponsive as booking for 15 special trains began at its scheduled time at 4 pm.

IRCTC website had gone unresponsive earlier.

Responding to the delay, the Railway Ministry in a tweet said that data pertaining to special trains is being fed and that bookings will be available from 6 pm.

Data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted.

— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) May 11, 2020

Indian Railways is gradually restarting passenger trains operation from May 12 after they were suspended in view of the nationwide coronavirus-induced lockdown in March.

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IRCTC Ticket Booking: Full list of special trains that will run from tomorrow

A total of 15 trains for different destinations will leave New Delhi on Tuesday for which bookings will begin today. The special trains will run from New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

Here are guidelines you need to follow while travelling

On Monday, the Home Ministry issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the movement of people by trains and made it clear that only asymptomatic and confirmed ticket holders will be allowed to travel. The fares of these trains will be that of Rajdhani trains, which means all these will be all air-conditioned coaches.

Passengers will have to reach 90 mins in advance in stations to board the trains.

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