Southern Railway has completed at its Chennai Data Centre changes in Tatkal fare to normal fare for 39 holiday/festival special trains of Southern Railway and 47 holiday/festival special trains of South Western Railway. Other Zonal Railways too have followed suit.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) and five Regional Data Centres of Indian Railways have completed renumbering of all mail/express trains running on Indian Railways by 5.30 a.m. on Sunday, that is within six days as against the seven-day target. The Railways had announced that the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) will remain shut for six hours between 11.30 p.m. and 5.30 a.m. from November 14 to November 21 to facilitate change in train numbers from special (starting with 0) to regular (starting with 1 or 2).
With this exercise, all train numbers have been brought back to the old train numbers as it existed before the pandemic struck. In Chennai Data Centre, train numbers of 314 trains originating in Southern Railway and 172 trains originating in South Western Railway were renumbered during the period.
A release from Southern Railway said that train services that were suspended in March 2020 due to COVID-19 were reintroduced as mail/express specials and holiday specials in June 2020. While the Railways did not collect excess fares for mail/express trains, though they were called special trains, it did collect Tatkal fares for holiday/festival special trains. Indian Railways decided to run all these trains as regular services with train numbers and fares that existed before COVID-19.
Notwithstanding the introduction of regular train services, some restrictions introduced during COVID-19 will continue to be enforced. General coaches of these trains will be run as reserved coaches (second sitting class) unless they are notified as unreserved coaches by the respective zones. The zones are working towards de-reserving general coaches in a phased manner on mail/express trains. Also, passengers have to follow COVID-19-appropriate behaviour, including social distancing, wearing face covers, while they are on Railway premises and on trains.
