Railways to Run 20 Pairs of Clone Trains on High-demand Routes from Next Week

The Indian Railways on Tuesday said it will run 20 pairs of clone trains from September 21, most of them to and from Bihar. While the tickets for 19 pairs of these trains will be charged at the Humsafar Express rates, it will be at par with the Janshatabdi Express rates for the clone train between Lucknow and Delhi.

The advance reservation period for these trains will be 10 days and the booking will open at 8 am on September 19, the Railways said.

In a media briefing recently, Railway Board chairman VK Yadav had said the national transporter will operate clone trains on the routes that have a long waiting list, so that the passengers with such tickets can travel. These clone trains will run ahead of the actual train so that passengers have no problem in travelling.

On Tuesday, the Railways said that these trains will operate on notified timings and will be fully reserved services.

While the 19 pairs of Humsafar Express trains will be of 18 coaches, the Lucknow-Delhi train will have 22 coaches. According to the list of trains being run by the Railways, 10 trains (five pairs) will operate between Bihar and Delhi under the East Central Railways. These trains will originate and terminate in Bihar’s Saharsa, Rajendra Nagar, Rajgir, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. The two trains operating under the Northeast Frontier Railway are also from Bihar: Katihar to Delhi and back. The Northern Railway will also run 10 trains (5 pairs) which will operate between Delhi and Bihar and back, West Bengal to Delhi, Punjab to West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh to Delhi among others.

The South Central Railway will operate two trains between Danapur (Bihar) to Secunderabad and back. The South Western Railway will operate 6 trains (3 pairs) between Goa and Delhi, Karnataka-Bihar and Karnataka-Delhi.

The Western Railway will run 10 trains (5 pairs) between Bihar (Darbhanga)-Gujarat(Ahmedabad), Delhi-Gujarat, Bihar (Chhapra) to Gujarat (Surat), Mumbai-Punjab, Gujarat(Ahmedabad)-Bihar (Patna) These trains will run in addition to the 310 special trains already in service and their stoppages will be limited to operational halt or the Divisional Headquarters en-route (if any). The suggestions of state governments may also be kept while restricting the halts, the national transporter said.

(With inputs from PTI)