New Delhi: In good news for passengers, railways is all set to introduce more of its niche trains – Antyodaya Express, Uday Express and Tejas Express – likely in the next 12 months, according to the new time table to be released Wednesday.
Trains at a Glance (TAG), the railway publication, will include a new Antyodaya Express, a train with all unreserved and general coaches, and two brand new Tejas Express trains, India’s first semi-high speed fully air-conditioned trains.
Two new Uday Express trains – the AC chair car double decker trains – have also been included in the time table and mentioned in the TAG publication. Since these five new trains have been included in the new time table, it is expected that they will be introduced soon.
The railways, which has already introduced 23 Humsafar Express trains, 10 Antyodaya Express, one Tejas Express, one Uday Express, has now incorporated them in the new TAG. In 2018, the duration of maintenance works to be carried out by railways will be 292 hours more than the hours in 2017, according to the railway publication.
The new TAG will reflect a policy change of the railways in which it has been decided that the trains having a maximum permissible speed of 110 kilometers per hour (kmph) will be run at 105 kmph to reflect actual running time and improve punctuality of the trains. This will also result in change of arrival and departure timings of many trains.
However, the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Tejas, Gatimaan, Humsafar, Garibrath, Duronto and Antyodaya Express trains having MPS of 130 kmph have been charted at 130 kmph.
Railways’ move of replacing conventional rakes with the modern Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches will also be continued with the national transporter setting a target of replacing 66 more rakes by March 31, 2019.
In the year 2017-18, 49 conventional rakes have been replaced by LHB rakes. In the current financial year, 48 rakes have already been replaced by LHB rakes till today.
