Railways to run special clone trains from Sept 21 on specific routes; see full list

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Railways to run special clone trains from Sept 21 on specific routes; see full list

Apart from running on notified timings, these 'clone' trains will be fully reserved with their stoppages being limited to operational halts

The duplicate trains will be in addition to the 310 special trains already in service

Indian Railways will run 40 'clone' or duplicate trains on high-demand routes from September 21. The trains will run one or two hours ahead of the departure of already running special trains.

Apart from running on notified timings, these 'clone' trains will be fully reserved with their stoppages being limited to operational halts.

"Considering the huge demand for travel on specific routes, the Ministry of Railways has decided to run 20 pairs of Clone Special trains (list annexed in the link below) from 21.09.2020 (sic)," the ministry said in a statement.

The duplicate trains will be in addition to the 310 special trains already in service. Running these clone trains will not only ensure accessibility of on-demand trains for passengers but will also benefit Indian Railways, helping the national transporter boost its revenue at a time when the passenger segment earnings have taken a beating due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Here is the full list of the 20 pairs of 'clone' trains:

The ticket price on these trains will be charged at the rate of Humsafar Express trains. The tickets for the duplicate train on the Lucknow-Delhi route will be at par with the Janshatabdi Express rates.

There will be a 10-day advance reservation period for these trains. Last week, Indian Railways had announced these special 'clone' trains to provide relief to waitlisted passengers on routes which usually have high passenger traffic.

The railways suspended all passenger train services in the wake of the imposition of a countrywide lockdown from March 25.

However, it resumed services in a phased manner, with Shramik Special trains, brought in operation first, to ferry stranded migrant labourers to their home states from May 1.

The Railways, thenceforth, started 230 special trains across the country and ran another 80 special trains from September 12.

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