New timetable for 500 trains announced by Indian Railways; travel time to come down from November 1

In a bid to cut down on travel time of several long distance trains by up to three hours, the Indian Railways has announced a new timetable which will come into effect from November 1, 2017. As many as sixty-five trains under Northern Railway will run faster as the Indian Railways plans on speeding up trains and reducing the time of halt of trains at railway stations.

According to a report in Zee News, the new time table has been introduced under the direction of Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. Trains such as the Bhopal-Jodhpur Express will reach 95 minutes early while the Guwahati-Indore Special will complete its 2,330-km journey 115 minutes early and the 1929-km journey of the Ghazipur-Bandra Terminus Express will be completed 95 minutes earlier, the report said.

In the new time table virtually every rail zone has trains which have been speeded up - for example, 51 express and 36 passenger trains running under the Southern Railway have been speeded up while in East Coast Railway (ECoR) 37 express and 19 local passenger trains will run faster.

The Northern Railway timetable has three new trains for the sector - Tejas, Humsafar and Antyodaya Express.

The Tejas Express, India's first semi-high speed, full-AC train will run six days a week between New Delhi and Chandigarh, and Lucknow and Anand Vihar.

The Humsafar Express, completely three-tier AC sleeper train, will run between Sealdah and Jammu Tawi once a week and tri-weekly between Anand Vihar and Allahabad.

The Antyodaya Express, featuring all unreserved or general coaches, will run between Darbhanga and Jalandhar, and Bilaspur and Ferozepur once a week.

The railways has also reworked the timings of trains to ensure that passengers get maximum time in the city they are visiting and also able to avoid peak hour traffic at their destinations.

Change in number of trains

115107/15108 Mathura-Chhapra express (tri-weekly) has been speeded up and converted into superfast with new number 22531/22532 w.e.f. 09.08.2017.

214155/14156 Kanpur-Udhampur express (bi-weelkly) has been speeded up and extended up to Allahabad with new number as 24155/24156 w.e.f. 10.06.2017. Now the train has renumbered as 22431/22432 w.e.f. 24.10.2017.

454003/54004 Kosikalan-Nizamuddin passenger has been converted into MEMU with new number 64569/64570 w.e.f. 08.10.2017.

522693/22694 Bangalore-New Delhi Rajdhani express (tri-weekly) has been merged in train number 22691/22692 (4 days) and made 22691/22692 daily.

611065/11066 Lokmany Tilak Term-Darbhanga Pawan express (tri-weekly) has been merged in train number 11061/11062 (4 days) and made 11061/11062 daily.

with PTI inputs