After almost two months of closure due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19)-necessitated nationwide lockdown, the Indian Railways has resumed its services, although partially, as fifteen pairs of special passenger trains are being allowed to run between New Delhi and different destinations (that is, 30 return journeys) from today.

The bookings for reservation in these trains were started yesterday and according to reports, the Indian Railways managed to sell tickets worth Rs 10 crore to around 54,000 passengers within hours of opening the portal. Although the ticket booking was supposed to begin at 4 PM, the  IRCTC website began booking tickets for travel on special trains after 6 PM, two hours behind the schedule due to a technical glitch.

However, all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold within the first 10 minutes.

Initially, these trains are being run as special trains from the New Delhi station, connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad, and Jammu Tawi.

Eight trains will start on Tuesday — three from New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Bengaluru, and Bilaspur. The rest will start from Howrah, Patna, Bengaluru, Mumbai Central and Ahmedabad for New Delhi. All the trains will only have air-conditioned coaches.

Railways also issued new guidelines for traveling on these special trains asking passengers to carry their own food and linen and arrive at stations at least 90 minutes before departure for health screening.

According to the timetable issued by the Railways, the trains will run either daily, weekly, or bi-weekly from May 12 to 20 as of now. There are no trains scheduled on May 16 and May 19.

Bookings will be available only on the IRCTC official website and no booking can be done through 'agents'-both IRCTC agents and Railway Agents.

For a complete list of the new guidelines, read here.