Western Railway has announced a slew of trains over the past few weeks augmented and extended the services of several trains till the end of the summer travel season, says a statement from the zone.
According to WR officials, as of now, 266 regular special trains are being run by the zone. In addition to it, 38 Summer Special trains with a total of 196 trips have been announced to meet the extra demand as well as for the convenience of passengers.
Besides, 17 Summer Special trains with 61 trips have been already notified in April 2021 for UP, Bihar and eastern India from 10th April 2021 onwards. This will increase the number of berths to 96,110 seats/berths i.e. 6,500 berths/seats per day during the remaining period of April.
This will be in addition to an average of 18-20 trains with 28,000-30,000 berths/seats per day running on a regular basis destined for the same regions.
30 pairs of festival special trains have been extended till 30th June 2021 out of which 13 pairs of train cater to the northern & eastern parts of the country. In addition to the above, WR has decided to augment the existing trains with more than 233 additional coaches to clear the rush in the month of April 2021.
WR had temporarily augmented 575 additional coaches to the existing trains to clear the rush. The Waiting List in regular & special trains are monitored daily on a real-time basis and additional new special trains will be planned accordingly to clear the waitlist.
During the period from 1st April – 15th April 2021, 234 trains were run to various destinations & out of these, 68 trains with a total of 246 trips were run towards the North/ Eastern states of UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha & Assam. It is noteworthy to mention that on 16th April 2021, WR has run a total of 119 trains, out of which 39 trains were north & eastbound trains.
Various measures for Crowd Management at stations
Security measures have been increased at stations, according to WR CPRO Sumit Thakur. Adequate RPF Bandobast has been deployed at major stations of WR to help & guide passengers. RPF/GRP personnel have been arranged to streamline the inflow of passengers and for crowd management.
Thermal screening of passengers boarding the trains is carried out at 28 stations over WR by RPF staff deployed at Entry Points. They are also ensuring that the passengers are following the norms, protocols & SOP related to COVID – 19 including maintaining social distancing & wearing of masks, etc besides motivating the passengers for the same while travelling in trains. Ticket checking has also been intensified to curb unauthorised passengers and to ensure that only bonafide passengers with confirmed reservation are allowed to board the train.
All entry and Exit Points of stations are properly manned by the checking staff alongwith RPF/ GRP personnel. COVID-19 appropriate protocol, as determined by the respective state governments, is being ensured. Further, regular Announcements as well as extensive awareness campaigns are being made on social media platforms through webcards, short videos etc. and digital screens at stations regarding following of COVID appropriate behaviour by all passengers such as wearing of masks, use sanitisers & handwash and maintaining social distancing, etc