RailEnquiry

Shadow Trains - name sounds so inviting and if started, trains will also invite passengers to travel hassle free. The idea behind shadow trains is to closely follow their original counterpart with a gap 20 to 30 minutes.

Railway is monitoring those routes, which are always packed and passengers always rush to get any available train like on Bengaluru-Chennai routes, Bengaluru-Howrah, Bengaluru-Belgaum or Bengaluru-Ernakulam.

The main idea is to control rush of passengers on extra busy routes as most of the time there is instant unavailability of tickets. Trains like Shatabdi or Kanyakumari express are always full. Railway is closely monitoring the situation; once finalized it might implement the idea soon.

Railway official says that the main hurdle in operating shadow trains is availability of route because it is not only rush of passengers on these routes but there is also continuous rail traffic. In addition, railway do not want to loose there passengers who always prefer AC coaches to travel as they are a good source of revenue.

Railway has already introduced an alternative train scheme under - Vikalp option. If your ticket is not confirmed on a particular route say for Rajdhani, then Railway will try to accommodate you in another train heading towards the same destination on the same day itself. This facility is only available on tickets booked through internet and is limited to very small sector, as it requires lots of automated calculation.