India has entered into lockdown 4.O with much larger activities and exponentially rising COVID-19 cases. People have started travelling back to their workplaces. Shops, offices, and other activities have started unlocking themselves. Numerous people are opting for Indian Railways and the number is increasing day by day due to which Indian Railways are witnessing heavy traffic on certain routes and are not able to accommodate all waitlisted passengers on regular running trains because it may lead to defying of the social distancing norms.
Therefore, to provide relaxation to the waitlisted passengers Indian Railways have introduced a new “Clone Train” scheme. A special train will run in the routes which generally see the high waiting list of passengers.
“Railways will monitor all the trains that are currently in operation to determine which trains have a long waiting list. Wherever there is a demand for a particular train, whenever the waiting list is long, we will run a clone train ahead of the actual train, so that passengers can travel.” Mr VK Yadav, Chairman at the Railway Board said in the meeting.
The clone trains will begin exercising in a phased manner in the next 15 days and the Indian Railways will publish information about it.
Highlighting, few facts about the ” Clone Train” as per as the Indian Railways revelation is as follows-:
1- The clone train will run as a substitute to the actual one, and will have the same train number as the original train. It will regulate only if the waitlist passengers of that train are quite massive in number. Also, the clone trains will be adjusting only waitlisted passengers and not the regular ones.
2- People who are in waiting lists will be notified regarding their berths in the clone train soon after the reservation charts for the originally registered trains are up, i.e., four hours prior to the departure.
3- Operating these clone trains will extend a challenge for the Railways, as they would require additional rakes for running. So, the railways will be running these trains from major cities initially where there are supplementary rakes.
4- As per the overdue announcement, the clone trains will be mainly 3AC Trains, which will be running ahead of the special trains that are already running from the lockdowns.
5- This scheme is somehow like the Vikalp scheme, wherein those in the waitlist are accommodated in another train on the same route, Regardless of reserving accommodation and quota. However, in the Vikalp scheme, the waitlisted passengers may be allotted a nearby boarding and destination station instead of the original boarding and destination stations.
6- The clone train is more likely to start in merely 15 days away. But, one cannot board these clone trains on a new ticket. Only waitlisted passengers will be acclimated on a ‘clone’ train.
The Indian Railways had stopped its services from March 25 due to lockdown but slowly and gradually it has started resuming. Indian Railway has made a major announcement on September 5 that they will be operating 80 more special trains from September 12 in extension to the already 230 existing exercising trains.
Also read: Railway To Run 80 Special Trains, Hoping To Revive The Lost Economy