In a bid to decongest its terminals, railways has decided to change the terminating stations of 23 key trains which will help shorten the delays at these points, a senior official of railways said today.
A "terminal" or "terminus" is a station at the end of a railway line. Trains arriving there have to end their journeys (terminate) or reverse out of the station.
To avoid criss-cross movement at important stations, the terminals of important trains have been changed, the official said, adding that in the current financial year, terminals of 23 trains have been shifted.
Among them, 12 trains are in Northern Railway, five in North Central Railway, one each in East Central Railway and North Western Railway and four trains in South Central Railway which have been shifted.
In January this year, a Niti Aayog report on railways had suggested decongestion of railway terminals, saying that trains, both passenger and freight, undergo substantial waiting just short of major terminals.
Railways has also shifted 20 trains to adjacent terminals thus streamlining operations at terminals by avoiding reversals, which keep the tracks engaged contributing to delays.
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In the current financial year, the terminals of four trains in South East Central Railway, seven trains in West Central Railway, two in Eastcoast Railway, five trains in South Eastern Railway and two trains in North Central Railway have been shifted.
These changes will be reflected in the new timetable published in the railway publication, Trains at a Glance (TAG), which will be effective from tomorrow.
The new time table will also include five new yet to be introduced trains-Antyodaya Express, a train with all unreserved and general coaches, and two brand new Tejas Express trains, India's first semi-high speed fully air-conditioned trains.
Two new Uday Express trains - the AC chair car double decker trains - have also been included in the time table and mentioned in the TAG publication.
Since these five new trains have been included in the new time table, it is expected that they will be introduced soon.
In 2018, the duration of maintenance works to be carried out by railways will be 292 hours more than the hours in 2017, according to the railway publication.
The new TAG will also reflect a policy change of the railways in which it has been decided that the trains having a maximum permissible speed of 110 kilometers per hour (kmph) will be run at 105 kmph to reflect actual running time and improve punctuality of the trains. This will also result in change of arrival and departure timings of many trains.
However, the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Tejas, Gatimaan, Humsafar, Garibrath, Duronto and Antyodaya Express trains having MPS of 130 kmph have been charted at 130 kmph.
Railways' move of replacing conventional rakes with the modern Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches will also be continued with the national transporter setting a target of replacing 66 more rakes by March 31, 2019.
In the year 2017-18, 49 conventional rakes have been replaced by LHB rakes. In the current financial year, 48 rakes have already been replaced by LHB rakes till today.
Indian Railways runs about 3500 reserved trains which include Gatiman Express, Rajdhani Express, Humsaafar Express, Tejas Express, Duronto Express, Antyodaya Express, Garib Rath Express, Shatabdi Express, Sampark Kranti Express, YUVA Express, Janshatabdi Express and other types of Express trains. This is in addition to about 4600 Passenger and 5000 EMU trains. The volume of passengers carried daily is about 2.22 million.
In addition, more than 36,000 special train trips were run during 2017-18 to clear extra rush and meet passenger demand. About 500 coaches were permanently augmented in about 300 trains to increase the carrying capacity.
In the year 2017-18, 90 new services were introduced, 43 services were extended and increase in frequency of nine services was done.
In the current year up to August 14, 35 train services have already been introduced, 28 services have been extended and increase in frequency of five trains has been effected.