Railways announces 2 more festival special trains

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, November 5

Amidst uncertainty over the resumption of rail traffic in the region due to the ongoing farmers’ agitation, the Railways have announced two more pairs of festival trains purportedly to cope with the spurt in the passenger traffic during the festival season.

At the same time, the cancellation and partial cancellation of several passenger trains have also been extended, which the Railways officials claimed was necessitated due to safety concerns.

According to the officials, the 05211/12 Darbhanga-Amritsar-Darbhanga Jansadharan Express would run daily from November 10 to December 2, while the 05531/32 Saharsa-Amritsar-Saharsa Jansadharan Express Weekly train would operate from November 12 to 30.

Commenting on the introduction of the festival special trains at a time when the entire rail traffic in the state of Punjab and further up to Jammu and Kashmir was suspended indefinitely, officials said the introduction of the festival trains was a routine exercise depending on the increase in the passenger traffic during this particular season, while the suspension of the trains was a temporary phenomenon.

“Till such time the normal movement of trains resumes in Punjab, the festival special trains will have truncated runs (short-termination and short-origination) as per the given schedule,” the officials said.

Meanwhile, the Northern Railway authorities have further extended the cancellation of five pairs of trains due to farmers’ agitation. The cancelled trains include 02425/26 New Delhi-Jammu Tawi-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, 02053/54 Haridwar-Amritsar-Haridwar Janshatabdi Express, 22439/40 New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-New Delhi Vande Bharat Express, 02461/62 New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-New Delhi Shri Shakti Express and 02011/12 New Delhi-Una-New Delhi Himachal Express.

Similarly, more than 12 festival special trains, scheduled to run to destinations like Jammu Tawi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Jammu Tawi and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra, would also remain cancelled till the rail traffic was resumed.

Another 13 pairs of mail, express and festival special trains would be partially cancelled with short-termination at and short-origination from intermediate station including Ambala Cantt, Saharanpur, Meerut City and New Delhi.