Punjab may soon get its own Palace on Wheels

“We have got Punjab government’s approval for the project. Now, we only have to seek the Railway Board’s nod,” said IRCTC’s managing director P K Goel.

According to the arrangement being worked out, the train would start from Delhi and would travel through the cities of Amritsar, Ropar and Patiala to reach Chandigarh from where it would go upto Barog in Himachal Pradesh. On it’s way back, the train would cover cities like Jaipur and Agra to culminate at Delhi. “It could be a week-long trip where people get to visit famous gurudwaras like the Golden Temple, the Anandpur Sahib and the Kiratpur Sahib and also the royal heritage of the Maharaja of Patiala,” Goel said.

Further, there are plans to arrange short-distance tours to places of tourist interest during the trip. For instance, tourists may get to visit to Chail, which was Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh’s summer abode and still boasts of the world’s highest cricket pitch and polo ground.

IRCTC and the Punjab government would share the responsibility of operating the train. While IRCTC’s main job would be running the train and providing on-board services like catering, the state government would take care of the sightseeing bit and other cultural activities.

With this move, the Railways hope to cash in on the enormous popularity of the original Palace on Wheels in Rajasthan which is booked in advance till 2009-10 and earned a net revenue of Rs 29 crore in 2005-06. Some in the ministry think that many people may want to experience the train journey and may not be so interested in touring the places and so it would make more sense to have more such trains operating on different routes.

Bharat Darshan trains

NEW DELHI: Having tasted some degree of success on the experimental “Bharat Darshan-Village on Wheels” tourist train, IRCTC now has plans to run 4-5 similar trains across the country and is planning to rope in public-private players for the project.

“These trains will have seven Sleeper Class Coaches, two luggage-cum-brake vans and one pantry car,” said an IRCTC official. Starting from Madurai, the first Bharat Darshan tourist train covered Agra, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Hardwar, Varanasi, Gaya and Allahabad and had pick-up points at Dindigul, Tiruchi, Chennai, Nellore, Vijayawada and Nagpur.