RailEnquiry

With ever-increasing passenger burden on some trains, the South Western Railway is working on a proposal to introduce a ‘duplicate’ train to meet extra passenger load. The initiative is particularly aimed at waiting list passengers.As per the proposal, the ‘duplicate’ train will run on the same day and with the same train number, half an hour after the departure of the scheduled train that has a high passenger volume.“A pilot for the proposal has been suggested for the Bengaluru-Patna Sanghamitra Express, as this daily train often sees a high volume of passengers,” informed a senior official from the SWR operations department.This will benefit waiting list passengers travelling on long routes as they can then get reserved seats on the next train. Besides this, the initiative will also take away the need for running extra ‘special trains,’” the official opined.As per the proposal, if a passenger misses the last train, s/he can still board the next train with the same ticket.As per accepted practice, usually during peak seasons, the Railways add extra coaches; however, this has its limits. Coaches are added based on the length of major railway stations and at present, the maximum coaches are 24.A pilot for this proposal is to be taken up on the Sanghamitra Express and after getting approval from the Railways, the initiative will be implemented on other trains as well.