Amid increasing complaints by travellers about trains being delayed, the Ministry of Railways has planned to come out with its re-worked time table on August 15. The new time table is expected to address the punctuality issue by taking into account delays caused due to maintenance works, leading to increased running time.
The new time table — Trains at a Glance (TAG) — also includes five new trains to be introduced soon — the Antyodaya Express, 2 Uday Express trains and 2 Tejas Express trains.
“A careful analysis of the reasons for loss of punctuality has been carried out for trains regularly running late and necessary changes in the time table have been incorporated to improve punctuality,” an official release said.
Maintenance blocks
The Railways has decided to provision for fixed corridor blocks to provide sufficient time for the maintenance of the fixed infrastructure like track structure, signalling gears, overhead equipment. “Zonal Railways have incorporated traffic corridor blocks of 2.5 to 3 hours duration in the new Working Time Table w.e.f. 15.08.2018,” the press release said. In 2018, the duration of maintenance works to be carried out by the railways will be 292 hours more than those allocated in 2017.
Indian Railways runs about 3,500 reserved trains such as Gatiman Express, Rajdhani Express, Humsaafar Express, Tejas Express and Duronto Express, in addition to about 4,600 passenger and 5,000 EMU trains.
Further, it has been decided that the trains having a maximum permissible speed of 110 kilometers per hour (kmph) will be run at 105 kmph to reflect actual running time and improve punctuality of the trains. It has also be decided that the terminals of 23 important trains be changed to help reduce delays.
