New Delhi, Feb 6: Reaching out to rail users, Indian Railways has introduced a total 419 new trains to facilitate passengers travelling to their destinations across the country in the last two years.
Though the government has stopped the practice of announcing launching of new trains in the budget, new trains have been launched with regular frequency to cater to the demands of the region.
According to the railway data, 266 new trains were introduced in 2018-19 and 153 new trains in 2019-20.
Earlier, it was a regular practice to announce several trains in the Budget catering to the political considerations.
“It is a continual endeavour of Indian Railways to upgrade train services and to provide improved facilities to the passengers. To this end, Indian Railways have introduced premium services like Vande Bharat Express, Humsafar, Tejas, Antyodaya, Utkrisht Double Decker Air-conditioned Yatri (UDAY), to provide better travelling experience to the passengers,” Railway Minister Piyus Goyal has said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
The State-of-the-art Train-set Vande Bharat services have been introduced in New Delhi – Varanasi and New Delhi- Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra sectors. These trains have ultra modern features like quick acceleration, on board infotainment and Global Positioning System (GPS) based passenger information system, automatic sliding doors, retractable footsteps and Zero discharge vacuum bio toilets etc.
In all four pairs of Tejas Express services have been introduced over Indian Railways system. Two of these namely Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus –Karmali Tejas Express and Chennai Egmore – Madurai Jn Tejas Express are being run by Indian Railways, while the other two Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas Express and Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Tejas Express are operated by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
(IRCTC).
Two pairs of Utkrisht Double-Decker Air-conditioned Yatri (UDAY) Express have been operationalized which are Bangalore City – Coimbatore UDAY Express and Visakhapatnam-Vijayawada UDAY Express have been introduced.
Other premium services like Humsafar, Antyodaya, Mahamana and coaches like Deen Dayalu and Anubhuti, which have upgraded interiors / exteriors
and improved passenger amenities, have been introduced in service in various train services.
Currently, the Railways ìs manufacturing only Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches, which are technologically superior and have better riding, aesthetics and safety features than conventional Integral Coach Factory (ICF) type coaches.
Production Units of Indian Railways have stopped the manufacturing of ICF type coaches and are manufacturing only LHB coaches from the year 2018-19 onwards.
Vistadome coaches provide panoramic view, through wider body side windows as well as through transparent sections in the roof, thus enabling the passengers to enjoy the scenic beauty of the places through
which they travel. Recently, Vistadome coaches on the LHB platform have been manufactured with several modern features / amenities.
IR had also launched Project Utkrisht in April 2018 in order to improve the condition of ICF type coaches running in Mail / Express trains. Upgradation of 447 rakes of Mail / Express trains has been completed, till December 2020, under Project Utkrisht.
Under Project Swarn, 65 rakes of Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains have been upgraded across multiple dimensions, which include coach interiors, toilets, onboard cleanliness, staff behaviour, linen, etc.
63 smart coaches with ultra modern features like Smart Public address and passenger information system, Smart HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning system), Smart security and surveillance system etc. have been manufactured and introduced in service.
Conventional lighting in coaches has been replaced with modern and energy efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights. Railways has also been providing an increased number of mobile charging points in coaches.