No need to run more special trains: Indian Railways

Since vacant berths are available on existing trains, there is no need to run more trains, said Railway Board chairman V K Yadav on Thursday.

"Most trains running without waiting lists. Right now no need to run more trains. Even on the ones running with waiting lists, one can get a confirmed ticket after a few days," he told reporters in a virtual media conference.

The railways is monitoring the situation. Officials are in touch with states, he said.

The Chairman also said that the railways had to cancel six trains out of the 230 trains after state governments' demands.

"We have cancelled two special trains and four timetabled special trains on the demand of the state governments in view of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) situation," he said.

Indian Railways has started to run 15 pairs of special AC trains from May 12 and 100 pairs of special timetabled trains from June 1.

The national transporter had suspended passenger train services from March 25 due to the nationwide lockdown to fight Covid-19.

Yadav also said the railways has met all the existing demand of states for Shramik Special trains to ferry stranded migrant workers home, with the last service being operated on July 9.

A total of 4,615 Shramik Special trains have been run since May 1, taking over 63 lakh people home during the coronavirus lockdown.

“The last Shramik Special train ran on July 9 and with that we presume that we have met the demand of the states regarding these trains. However, if there is more such demand, we will run these services again,¨ he said.