Diwali-Chhath Special Trains: Railways gears up to handle festive rush with 30 lakh additional berths

Amid the festive rush ahead of Diwali and Chhath Puja, Indian Railways has introduced several measures to handle the festive rush this year. Anticipating the rush on trains during the festivals, the Railways has announced the addition of 30 lakh berths across its network.

This measure aims to eliminate the ‘Regret’ status that occurs when trains reach full booking capacity on the IRCTC platform.

Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay, Northern Railway's Chief Public Relations Officer, said that a pilot project is currently being tested to remove the ‘regret’ status, and the early feedback has been quite positive, according to a report in Dainik Jagran.

To accommodate rising demand, the railway has already deployed 3,000 more carriages to various trains, with more to follow depending on passenger traffic.

“Special trains have also been launched to key destinations across Purvanchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh, and their detailed schedules are being published as they are announced,” an official was quoted as saying by the outlet.

‘Regret’ in railway ticket booking means that all available seats, including confirmed, RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation), and waiting list (WL) seats, are full. This indicates that no more tickets can be issued for that class and quota on that train, and the booking system has exhausted all its capacity to issue even waiting list tickets.

More passengers can now book tickets even when standard capacity is full, thanks to the system's addition of more coaches to trains with strong demand.

It is anticipated that this action will greatly shorten waiting queues and improve the ease of travel for travellers returning home during the festivals.

In September, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that Indian Railways will operate 12,000 special train services for the Chhath and Diwali festive season

in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. “Over 10,000 special train trips have already been notified,” he said.

In another passenger-friendly move that could make India's most popular travel mode far more flexible, Railways is introducing a new policy allowing passengers to change the travel date of confirmed tickets without paying any cancellation fees or extra charges.

Starting January, passengers can simply rebook another train, paying only the fee difference, if any, as long as seats are available, instead of losing money due to cancellations.