New Delhi: The Indian Railways has speeded up 261 trains as part of Mission Raftaar, by up to 110 minutes over different zones, providing a faster transit to passengers which will be reflected in the new time table which came into effect from Monday.
'Mission Raftaar' was announced in the Railway Budget 2016-17 and envisages a target of doubling average speed of freight trains and increasing the average speed of all non-suburban passenger trains by 25 kmph in the next five years.
Forty-nine new trains, which have already been introduced, have been added in the new time table. These are- one Vande Bharat Express train, 34 Humsafar Express trains, 11 Antyodaya Express trains, two Tejas Express trains and one Uday Express train.
The national transporter has also maximised the use of rolling stock. A review of the lie over periods of rakes at different destinations revealed that rakes of some of the trains were idling at the terminals.
Some of these have now been utilized for providing 40 new services, extension of 21 services and increase the frequency of 8 services. All these have been incorporated in the new time table.
The railways also said that it has replaced 141 short distance passenger trains, especially having reversal enroute, by Mainline Electric Multiple Units (MEMUs) and Diesel Electric Multiple Units (DEMUs) in 2018-2019, thereby increasing the overall mobility of the system.
The movement of 27 pairs of trains has been rationalized through adjacent/satellite terminals to obviate the need for reversal of locomotives.
To improve the travel experience, a total of 411 pairs of important long distance trains are now running with LHB coaches, thus improving the passenger experience.