Despite the Railway Ministry's claim of operating 18,000 special train trips across the country to clear the festive rush, passengers are increasingly turning away from special trains, railway officials have admitted. Higher fares, longer journey times and poor punctuality have made the extra services less attractive than the regular trains they were meant to supplement, leaving many travellers to wait in long queues for the trains they actually want.
The picture emerging from railway booking systems is striking. Regular trains continue to be in much greater demand, with waiting lists often exceeding the permissible limit and ticket-booking websites displaying the "Regret" status, which indicates that the number of passengers on the waiting list has crossed the maximum allowed.
The IRCTC website shows that regular trains on almost all major routes have either long waiting lists or the "Regret" status, a sign that demand far outstrips the seats available.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday during a media interaction that all trains were being monitored closely through a special War Room set up at Rail Bhawan to ensure their safe and timely arrival at destinations. The monitoring, he said, was part of the ministry's effort to manage one of the busiest travel periods of the year, when millions of people journey home for Diwali and the festivals that follow it.
Yet officials privately acknowledge that passengers do not prefer special trains, and the reasons are straightforward. The first is cost. Fares on special trains are normally up to 30 per cent higher than those on regular trains, a difference that matters greatly to families travelling together during the festive season, when the cost of tickets for several people can add up to a substantial sum.
The second reason is time. Special trains take considerably longer to cover the same distance, because they must be fitted into timetables around regular services and are often given lower priority on busy routes. The contrast can be dramatic.
On the New Delhi to Patna route, Train Number 04096, a festival special, charges 1,745 rupees for an AC three-tier ticket, whereas the regular Sampoorna Kranti Express charges 1,390 rupees. The special takes 22 hours and 55 minutes to complete the journey; the Sampoorna Kranti Express does it in 13 hours and 8 minutes.
The pattern repeats on other routes. Special train Number 01143 from Mumbai to Danapur, near Patna, charges 2,235 rupees for an AC three-tier ticket and takes 35 hours and 20 minutes to complete the journey. The regular LTT-Rajgir Express covers almost the same distance in 32 hours and 35 minutes, with an AC three-tier fare of 1,865 rupees. For passengers, the choice is not a difficult one: the regular train is cheaper, faster and more predictable.
The third reason is reliability. Despite the longer scheduled journey time, special trains hardly reach their destinations on time, often resulting in a tiring journey of 25 to 30 hours, according to railway officials. While regular trains generally run according to their scheduled timings, special trains are often delayed by several hours, causing uncertainty and inconvenience to passengers.
For travellers with connecting arrangements, with elderly relatives or small children, or with work to return to, that uncertainty is a powerful disincentive.
"Normally, fares on special trains are up to 30 per cent higher than those on regular trains. Moreover, we have to create separate paths for these trains, keeping in mind the capacity constraints on particular routes," a senior railway official said. The remark captures the operational difficulty at the heart of the problem.
India's rail network is among the busiest in the world, and on the most popular routes the tracks are already close to saturation. Squeezing in additional services means finding paths through a timetable that has little slack, and the extra trains inevitably run slower and less reliably than the services around which the timetable is built.
The festive rush is one of the great annual tests of the Indian Railways. Diwali, followed by Chhath, draws millions of people back to their home towns and villages, particularly to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the demand for trains out of Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities is intense. For many of these travellers, the train is not one option among several but the only affordable way home, and the pressure on the system is correspondingly severe.
The ministry's response has been to run special trains in large numbers, and the figure of 18,000 trips is presented as evidence of the scale of the effort. But the experience of passengers suggests that the number of trips is only part of the story. A special train that costs more, takes longer and arrives late is of limited use to a traveller who has already decided that the regular train, even with a long waiting list, is the better bet.
Many passengers, officials say, are willing to book waiting-list tickets for regular trains in the hope that their tickets will be confirmed, rather than take a confirmed berth on a special train.
Railway officials have suggested that lowering the fares of special trains could make them more attractive, and the idea is under discussion within the ministry. Cheaper fares would not solve the problems of journey time and punctuality, but they would at least remove one of the three obstacles that currently push passengers away. Whether the suggestion is accepted, and how quickly, remains to be seen.
The War Room at Rail Bhawan represents the other side of the ministry's response: closer monitoring of trains already on the move, with the aim of ensuring that they arrive safely and as close to schedule as possible. For passengers already travelling, that oversight matters. But for those still trying to book, the more pressing question is whether the additional services on offer are ones they actually want to use.
The episode illustrates a broader challenge for the railways. Adding capacity is not simply a matter of running more trains; it is a matter of running trains that passengers find worth boarding. Until special trains can match regular services on price, speed and reliability, the festive rush will continue to be defined by waiting lists, "Regret" messages and the determination of millions of travellers to wait for the train they trust.
(Reporting based on Deccan Herald and ThePrint.)