The Railways announced 89 special trains across all zones to be operated in the next three days starting Saturday to help people facing travel disruptions due to the mass flight cancellations by IndiGo. In a coordinated move by the Railway Ministry, the trains, which are to make over 100 trips, were arranged in the shortest possible time after analysis of train traffic situations in major cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Patna, and Howrah, among others. “The number of special trains and their trips might increase further depending on the traffic scenario. All zones have been asked to make use of all available resources, including rolling stock as well as manpower, to safely operate these trains for the convenience of lakhs of passengers stranded at different parts of the country due to flight cancellations,” said Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information & Publicity, Railway Board. Officials said efforts are being made to make people aware about the trains, and some divisions have even disseminated information at nearby airports to help passengers. South Eastern Railway has issued a press release and informed the Airport Authority to display information regarding the newly introduced special train services. “Western Railway will run seven special trains on a special fare between Mumbai Central-New Delhi, Mumbai Central-Bhiwani, Mumbai Central-Shakur Basti, Bandra Terminus-Durgapura, Valsad-Bilaspur, Sabarmati-Delhi and Sabarmati-Delhi Sarai Rohilla stations,” a press note said. Similarly, South Central Railway on Saturday announced that it would run four special trains to manage the surge in passengers resulting from the large-scale cancellation of IndiGo flights. Central Railway and Northern Railway have planned 14 and 10 special trains respectively, and officials said these numbers are being further reviewed to meet any rising requirements. Other zones have also issued notifications regarding special trains along with their schedules. For at least five days in a row, IndiGo flight operations have significantly disrupted, with a large number of cancellations and delays causing hardships to thousands of passengers. In many cases, baggages have been misplaced.
