Clone Trains

Indian Railways plans to launch ‘clone trains’ on high-demand routes that will be run within an hour of a scheduled train’s departure to accommodate those on its waiting list. 

Details:

• The idea behind such real-time demand-driven trains is to ensure that they reach their destination around the same time they had originally envisaged. Moreover, they would be informed about their berths in the clone train soon after the reservation charts for the original scheduled train are firmed up four hours before departure.
• These trains could originate from Howrah, Mumbai CST, Chennai, Secunderabad and New Delhi, where the Railways has big coaching yards and rolling stock to put together a clone train in quick time.
• In order to run viable clone trains, the Indian Railways will do away with the waiting list limit on the identified routes — currently, the Railways disables bookings after a waiting list for a train touches 400 in sleeper class, 300 in 3AC or chair car, 30 in first class and 100 in second class.

Benefits:

• The move will help Railways to lock in more potential revenue rather than refund wait listed passengers automatically.

The concept of clone trains is distinct from the Vikalp service launched for some routes on mail, express and super-fast trains, where waitlisted passengers are given alternative confirmed seats in other trains on the same route.

Vikalp

• ‘Vikalp’ to provide seats on alternate trains within twelve hours of the original train.
• However, that’s not enough to tap the huge demand on many popular routes as all trains tend to be booked fully during rush season.