Passengers of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains to get foods of their choice

Passengers traveling by the Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains will soon be able to get their choice of meals instead of whatever is provided by the Indian Railways. Within another four months, the Indian Railways is set to do away with mandatory catering on these prestigious trains.
Right now there are 22 sets of Rajdhanis, 24 sets of Shatabdis and 27 sets of Duronto Express trains in the country and the food menu in these trains is fixed.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 8 March 2016.

The present system is that meals and snacks in these trains are charged for as an integral part of the total fare and, all that the traveler has to do is to indicate whether they want vegetarian or non-vegetarian food. This concept will undergo a sea change.
As indicated in his Budget, the railway ministry is now working on the modalities of the new policy and exploring possibilities of making mandatory catering services optional in the trains. Instead, local cuisine of choice will be made available to passengers.
The new system will be similar to low-cost airlines where flyers can choose whether they want to pay for the food at the time of booking tickets. Those who decline food from the railways can pay Rs 150-200 less for their tickets and would have the option to buy food from outside through e-catering or carry their own meals or buy from a pantry if they want to.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Make your Rajdhani journey more colorful with bedrolls

Indian Railways plan to make your journey by Rajdhani Express more attractive by means of colorful - at present the bed sheets and pillow covers are white. These will soon become a riot of colors. The multi-color bedrolls will be designed by NIFT.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 8 January 2016.

Apart from bedrolls, the curtains installed in AC coaches are also being redesigned. The bedroll usually comprises two bed-sheets, one pillow, a blanket and a hand towel. As per revised plan, apart from the hand towel, everything else will be colorful.
Moreover, the color of curtains will be also matching with the color of bed-sheets and new multi-colored blankets will be introduced instead of regular blankets that are supplied in AC coaches.
There is no official information on when this new scheme will be effective from but, the newly-designed bedrolls will be introduced in one of the Rajdhani trains shortly.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Double decker Shatabdi Express train to run between Mumbai and Goa

Railway Minister has announced the plan to stat a double decker Shatabdi Express between Mumbai and Goa. Once operational, it would be India’s first ever double decker Shatabdi Express. The minister made the announcement on the sidelines of a program at the Goa University.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 24 October 2015.

When asked about a special Goa Rajdhani Express train, he remarked that he will "definitely look into it". Those from Goa who want to avail of Rajdhani luxury train services have to rely on the Trivandrum Rajdhani which passes through Goa and has a halt at Margao in South Goa.
The minister also indicated that keeping in mind tourists coming to Goa, the Railways could also consider starting holiday train for tourists. Like an IRCTC holiday train.
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Achhe Din for train travelers – Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express to get vacuum toilets

Those who travel by the Indian Railways have got accustomed to stinking and dirty toilets and, they can now expect to get into the ‘achhe din’ stage because vacuum toilets are being introduced in the Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express with immediate effect. These toilets are used in airlines.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 14 September 2015.

The cost of these vacuum toilets is about Rs 3 lakhs each and will be fitted in the First AC coach – these are equipped with the bio-digester system and are environment-friendly. These use less water than conventional ones because of improved efficiency of the flush – hence, it conserves water. And, such toilets would also help prevent corrosion of rail tracks.
As per plans, the railways will initially install 80 such toilets on a Shatabdi Express train.
At present premier trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi have controlled discharge toilet system which prevent disposal of waste at stations. The waste is automatically discharged once the train attains a minimum speed of 30 km per hour.
It seems till now, the railways have replaced 17,388 conventional toilets with bio-toilets and have plans to replace another 17,000 by the end of this year. Considering an express train with 25 coaches and each coach has four toilets, which would work out to 100 toilets for every train. Therefore, the 17388 plus 17000 toilets proposed by the year end would take care of 340 express trains. One would like to know the time frame for converting the remaining conventional toilets to bio toilets.
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Good news for train travelers – KFC to supply meals on trains

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation IRCTC system has tied up with KFC, the fast food giants, to supply meals to passengers on board trains. The system will takeoff from July 20 on trains that pass through New Delhi and will subsequently be extended to other trains.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 22 July 2015.

The service would be expanded to Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad (Kacheguda) and Bangalore (Yeshwantpur) stations within the next 10 days as indicated by a statement.
It would be available only on 12 trains passing through New Delhi railway station. These would be trains that do not have any pantry car and would, at a later date, be extended to trains like Rajdhani and Duronto. Price list of KFC items as on 27/7/14.
Under the scheme, a person travelling on the train can order KFC meal at the time of booking ticket through IRCTC from July 20 onwards. Once booked, the passenger would get a password on his mobile phone which he would have to reveal when he takes delivery of his food packet.
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Indian Railways – Budget 2015 is a budget of hollow promises

#RailBudget2015 #PrabhukiRail #biotoilet #IndianRailways The Railway Budget presented by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in the Parliament has made plenty of claims that may not be feasible given the mindset of Indians. In this connection reference can be made to ndtv.com dated 26 February 2015.
The fact that there is no change in passenger fares and no hikes is passe. But, why the reservation booking period of 4 months – can anybody predict what would happen in 4 months’ time. And – when he is unable to perform the journey, he would have to cancel it and pay cancellation charges. That is unfair. The reservation booking period should be much less – 10 days, as it used to be in the 1960s and 70s.
When it comes to cleanliness, we all know that it is of prime importance but, Indians are a typical set of people who have a different concept of cleanliness that may not match with the ideas of the Minister. It is good to know that integrated cleaning will be taken up through private agencies – what is left unsaid is that the contracts would probably go to people who have contacts that matter.
The Minister has indicated that 600 new bio-toilets would be brought in – probably these would be fitted in the Rajdhani Express and Shatbdi Express trains. But, the idea of replacing 17,000 old toilets with bio-toilets is vague. The toilets are an integral part of each coach. Each coach has four toilets and, to replace them, the coaches would have to go to the sheds for major repair work.
With 4 toilets in each coach and with each long distance train usually having around 30 coaches – that would mean 120 toilets in every train. Therefore, 17000 toilets would mean roughly 140 trains. Would the replacement of 17000 toilets become a 10-year project?
Before going in for such dream projects, the railways can come down to ground realities and take some action to check and repair or replace latches of existing toilets – many of them are unserviceable, broken or even missing.
Another area that needs to be clarified is that of audio-based warnings at unmanned railway crossings – the number of unmanned level crossings in the country is over 3000 as admitted and majority of these are in remote locations where electricity has yet to reach – therefore, the Minister should explain just how the audio-based warnings would work. Would these be solar operated systems or manual with fog horn like equipment?

How to beat the pangs of hunger in trains

When anyone undertakes a long distance journey by train, he has to plan for his meals along the way – long ago there used to be separate dining cars in important long distance trains. Having breakfast or lunch or dinner in these cars was a pleasant experience but, gradually, things changed. The railways withdrew from this service and handed it over to a private entity. New trains were introduced like Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, and Duronto Express, where the cost of food was included in the fare and passengers had to accept whatever was served. The result was a whole bunch of unhappy travelers with complaints of unhygienic food.
The catering service offered through the Indian Railways left a lot to be desired. The quality of food served as well as the service has deteriorated over the years and the railway ministry is now trying to hand over the responsibility to food giants like Haldiram’s and ITC. Moreover, there are also proposals to allow travelers to book their meals from outside sources – they would need to indicate their train number and the station when they want the meal and the food would be delivered in the train.
Of course, such facilities would probably not be available to all passengers because the Indian Railways may have set its sights on Bullet Trains but the fact remains that thousands of people travel every day in unreserved coaches where they get packed in like sardines in a can. To them the important thing is to reach the destination in one piece – for quenching their thirst or beating the pangs of hunger they would have to either carry with them their own eatables or would have to depend on food outlets on the railway platforms.
Actually, that used to be the usual system that travelers relied upon earlier – they would bring with them their own home made foods in containers and consume them as and when they wished. But, the ready availability of meals in running trains changed that scenario. Such meals used to initially come in trays and gradually the trays made way for casseroles.
Moreover, local vendors board the trains with their variety of foods on offer and the atmosphere in the reserved compartments resemble that of a market place – the vendors shout to get heard and at times engage in war of words with passengers on some issue or the other. Agreed – such diversions do make for an exciting journey that may not be a comfortable one. But then, time flies by quite fast.

A new experience of traveling by Duronto trains

When Mamata Banerjee was Railway Minister in the UPA Government in 2009, she had introduced a series of trains called Duronto – the word, in Bengali, translates to mean wild or untamed!! The trains would have AC as well as non-AC seats and meals, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian would be served in the train itself as is the system in the Rajdhani express.
As per initial plans, there would be a total of 12 Duronto trains – and, as Mamata Benerjee indicated, these new non-stop fast trains would take less time than even the Rajdhani express to complete their journey. The reason for this would be absence of intermediate stoppages because these would be pint to point.
Of course, there would be a few technical halts to facilitate staff and loco change.
Pune-Howrah Duronto express started from 9th October 2010 and its frequency was bi-weekly - departing from Pune at 3.15 pm on Saturdays and Mondays to reach Howrah at 7.40 pm, Sundays and Tuesdays. There would be operational halts at Daund, Manmad, Bhusawal and Nagpur.
The train consisted of 16 coaches, nine would be AC III-tiers, three AC II-tiers, and one coach as AC-I. The train would also have a pantry car as well and would cover the distance from Pune to Howrah in 28 hours as against 34 hours taken by the Azad Hind Express which was the only train available till then to go from Pune to Howrah direct.
Well – I had an opportunity to travel in the Pune Howrah Duronto last year during the Puja holidays and it was indeed a pleasant experience. The staff pampered the passengers no end and brought out delicious eatables right from the beginning of the journey. From evening tea with snacks to dinner and then next morning from bed tea to breakfast flowed by lunch and evening tea. The waiters were courteous and gave no reason to grumble.
The only thing lacking when compared with other mail or express trains was the absence of the hustle and bustle at stations when the train halts. Since there were no halts, I missed out that part of the journey.