Indian Railways open booking for 80 additional special trains which to operate from Sept 12

The Indian Railways Thursday opened bookings for additional 80 trains including a Vande Bharat Express, a Shatabdi train, and a weekly Shramik Special. The trains will run from September 12, the national carrier had announced earlier.

Booking for the train tickets can be done through the official website of IRCTC–https://www.irctc.co.in/ and also through the official IRCTC mobile application.

The resumed services include the Vande Bharat Express from Delhi to Varanasi and a host of trains on key routes connecting Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and West Bengal.

These trains are in addition to the existing 30 special Rajdhani and 200 Special Mail Express trains that are currently running. Most of the newly announced trains have a



daily frequency, however, some are also weekly and bi-weekly trains as well.

The national transporter also said due to heavy demand to clear waiting lists, it will soon run “clones” of trains.

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian Railways have suspended all regular passenger train services till further notice. With the suspension, the Indian Railways has estimated a loss of around Rs 40,000 crore in its passenger business for this fiscal.

The Railways had resumed limited passenger services from May 12, with 15 special trains departing from Delhi. On June 1, Railways pushed into service 100 more trains, including 17 Jan Shatabdi, five Durontos, and a number of traditionally popular mail or express trains to various parts of India. A weekly Shramik Special train has been rolled out between Valsad in Maharashtra and Muzaffarpur in Gujarat.