As India entered festival season and a huge movement of people from one place to another is seen during the festival, Indian Railways, one of the largest means to travel in India, geared up with a new timetable and upgraded high-speed trains.
Railways authorities upgraded the speed of 500 mail express trains and converted 130 services (65 pairs) to the Superfast category in the new All India Railway Timetable.
Railways released its new “Trains At A Glance (TAG)” effective from 1st October, 2022. The statement released by Railways reads “Punctuality of Indian Railways for Mail Express trains during the year 2022-23 is about 84%”
The Ministry of Railways released its new All India Railway Time Table known as “TRAINS AT A GLANCE (TAG)” effective from 1st October, 2022. The new Trains at a Glance is also available w.e.f. 1st October, 2022 on Indian Railways’ official website i.e. www.indianrailways.gov.in. One can also visit- https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/view_section.jsp?lang=0&id=0,...
The speeding up of trains is between 10 minutes - 70 minutes. In addition, 130 services (65 pairs) have been speeded up by converting to Superfast category.
Overall the average speed of all trains has increased by about 5% leading to availability of nearly 5% additional paths for operation of more trains. The punctuality of Indian Railways for Mail Express trains during the year 2022-23 is about 84% which is about 9% more than the punctuality of about 75% achieved during 2019-20.
Highlights of the new timetable are as follows:
Indian Railways runs about 3,240 Mail/Express trains which include Vande Bharat Express, Gatimaan Express, Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Humsaafar Express, Tejas Express, Duronto Express, Antyodaya Express, Garib Rath Express, Sampark Kranti Express, Yuva Express, Uday Express, Janshatabdi Express and other types of trains. In addition, about 3,000 Passenger trains and 5,660 suburban trains are also operated over the Indian Railways network. The volume of passengers carried daily is about 2.23 Crore.
To clear extra rush and meet passenger demand, more than 65,000 Special train trips were operated during 2021-22. About 566 coaches were permanently augmented to increase the carrying capacity.
At present, Vande Bharat Express trains are operating between New Delhi – Varanasi and New Delhi – Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra. One more Vande Bharat Express train has been introduced between Gandhinagar Capital and Mumbai Central w.e.f. 30.09.2022. It has been proposed to introduce more Vande Bharat Express trains over the Indian Railways network.
Tejas Express services offering onboard services like entertainment, local cuisine, wifi etc. are also being proliferated over Indian Railway network. At present, 7 pairs of Tejas Express services are operational over Indian Railways.
Efforts to improve punctuality of late running trains:
Necessary changes in the time table have been incorporated to improve punctuality. Due to concerted efforts the punctuality of Mail/Express trains has improved by about 9% as compared to the punctuality during pre Covid (2019-20).
Standardization of rakes:
The rakes at different maintenance depots have been standardized by integration of the rake links to improve flexibility in operations and thereby help in improving punctuality.
Replacement of conventional Passenger trains with MEMU/DEMU:
In the year 2021-22, 60 number of conventional passenger services have been replaced by MEMUs thereby increasing the overall mobility of the system.
Availability of Trains at a Glance as “e-Book”:
As a part of digitalization of train Time Table, Trains at a Glance (TAG) will now also be available as ‘e-Book’ which can be downloaded from IRCTC website.
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