Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announced four new categories of trains — one for unreserved passengers and three for reserved passengers.
“We propose to introduce the Antyodaya Express, a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man, to be operated on dense routes. We will also add two to four Deen Dayalu coaches to some long-distance trains for unreserved travel to enhance our carrying capacity for the masses,” Mr. Prabhu said in his budget speech.
He announced a fully third AC train, called Humsafar. The Tejas category of trains will run at 130 km an hour, with entertainment, local cuisine, Wi-Fi and other amenities on board. The final category is UDAY (Utkrisht DoubleDecker Air-conditioned Yatri), which will be overnight trains plying on the busiest routes to increase capacity by 40 per cent.
“Third AC is always a profit-making initiative, so if you make a third AC train, the Railways will not lose money. In all the pricing policies, third AC is the only one that makes a profit. So, as many third AC trains as you can introduce, to the extent that they can be absorbed, they are not losing propositions,” Arunendra Kumar, former Chairman of the Railway Board, told The Hindu . “An added benefit will be that they will allow the Railways to target the subsidised prices towards these trains, so that they are not availed by higher income passengers,” said Tilak Raj Seth, executive vice-president, mobility, at Siemens.
