Railways to extend special trains

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, December 1

Northern Railway has announced the extension of some special trains besides augmentation of carrying capacity of certain other trains on a permanent and temporary basis in view of the continuing rush of passengers on these sections.

It was officially stated that the 04401/04402 Anand Vihar Terminus-Udhampur-Anand Vihar Trminus Tri-weekly special train will make 26 additional trips (13 in each direction commencing from December 3; every Monday, Thursday and Saturday up to December 31, 2015) while leaving from Anand Vihar Terminus and from December 4, (every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday up to January 1, 2016) while departing from Udhampur.

Railway officials said the 12203/04 Saharsa-Amritsar-Saharsa Garib Rath Express Train would be permanently augmented by one additional AC chair car and one additional AC 3-tier coach from December 2 when departing from Amritsar and from December 3 when departing from Saharsa.

Similalrly, the 14033/34 Delhi-Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-Delhi Jammu Mail train will be permanently augmented by one additional general class coach from December 1 when departing from Delhi Junction and from December 2 when departing  from  Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra.

The 12425/12426  New Delhi-Jammu Tawi–New Delhi Rajdhani Express train is being temporarily augmented by one additional AC First Class and one additional AC 2-tier coach from December 1 to January 15, 2016, when departing from New Delhi and from December 2 to January 16, 2016, when departing from Jammu Tawi.

Meanwhile, thick cover of fog and poor visibility hit the traffic in the region with many of the long-route trains running late by several hours. 14611 Gorakhpur-Amritsar Jansadharan was delayed by 9.10 hours, 14153 Kanpur-Amritsar Weekly Express by 5.30 hrs, 18101 Tatanagar-Jammu Tawi Express by 4.40 hrs, 14154 Amritsar-Kanpur Weekly by 3.30 hrs and 12919 Indore-Jammu Tawi Malwa Express by 3.10 hrs. Many other trains, including 13049 Howrah-Amritsar Express, 12587 Gorakhpur-Jammu Tawi Amarnath Superfast Express, 05655 Kamakhya-Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra, 12471 Bandra Terminus-Sri Mata Vishno Devi Katra Swaraj Express, 15707 Katihar-Amritsar Amrapli Express, 11057 Mumbai CST-Amritsar Express, 12715 Nanded-Amritsar Sachkhand Express and New Delhi-Amritsar Intercity Express as well quite a few passenger and shuttle trains were one or two hours behind schedule.