NEW TIME TABLE FOR EASTERN ZONE PUBLISHED

NEW TIME TABLE FOR EASTERN ZONE PUBLISHED

Kolkata, September 29, 2015

The new Time Table for Eastern Railway, East Central Railway and Northeast Frontier Railway has been published today. It will be effective from 1st October, 2015.

Addressing a crowded press and media people, Shri R. K. Gupta, General Manager, Eastern Railway released the combined Mail/Express Time Table for Eastern Zone (Eastern Railway, East Central Railway and Northeast Frontier Railway) and also released combined Time Table for Suburban services of Eastern Railway, South Eastern Railway and Metro Railway Services.

Shri Gupta said that the preparation of this time table is a year-long exercise, during which a number of suggestions received from various passenger associations, people representatives, rail users and civil bodies. All the suggestions, proposals have been duly examined at Divisional level and Headquarters level, considering all the ground realities and possibilities. A number of changes have been made to suit to rail users and the same suggestions are made to the Railway Board for a decision at apex level. The time table conferences are held among the Zonal Railways at Railway Board level before final shape is given. This time table will now come into force from 1stOctober, 2015.

The primary objective of publication of this Time Table is to improve punctuality in passenger services, particularly, Mail/Express and also give due importance to suburban services by running the trains o­n time. Doubling of sections, induction of additional coaches and improvement of signalling system helps in running the trains in a reduced time and as per the Time Table. Keeping in view the passengers’ demand, some services have been extended and some new services also introduced. A few trains have been augmented with more coaches in a permanent measure and some as temporary measure.

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE NEW TIME TABLE :

1.Change of Terminal :

Terminal Station of 12249/12250 New Delhi-Howrah Yuba Exp. and 12323/12324 New Delhi-Howrah Exp. hasbeen changed from New Delhi to Anand Vihar Terminus. 12351/12352 Howrah-Danapur Exp. will now terminate at Rajendranagar instead of Danapur. This has been done to de-congest New Delhi and Danapur and to improve punctuality of these trains. The new Satellite Terminals have been well equipped with passenger amenities.

2.En route stoppage of Duranto Exp. :

Sealdah-New Delhi (12259/12260), Howrah-New Delhi (12273/1274) and Sealdah-Puri Duranto Exp. (22201/22202) trains are running end to end at present without commercial stoppage in between. New stoppages have been introduced at Dhanbad,Kanpur Central and at Kharagpur for benefit of passengers and better utilization of capacity.

3.Reduction in running time of trains – Mail/Exp., Passenger and Locals :

With the completion of doubling between Bandel and Katwa, Krishnanagar upto Plassey, Lalgola to Jiaganj, in Suburban sections of Sealdah Division and Tinpahar to Pirpainthi in two stretches in Malda Division,8 Mail/Express trains and 17 Passenger trains have been speeded up saving time between 5 to 45 mts. In Sealdah Division, 20 EMU locals between Sealdah and Diamond Harbour, 7 locals between Sealdah and Laxmikantapur have been speeded up to save 5 to 8 mts. In Bandel – Katwa section also 28 local trains have been speeded up by5 to 45 mts.

4.Introduction of new trains :

Two DEMU Passenger trains have been introduced between Azimganj and Nimtita 5 days a week. Three pairs of local trains – Tarakeswer-Arambagh, Bandel-Katwa and Ranaghat-Gede have been newly introduced o­n passenger demand utilizing lie over of EMU rakes. Four EMU services have been introduced between Sonarpur – Mathurapur Road, Mathurapur Road – Baruipur, Baruipur – Diamond Harbour and Diamond Harbour- Sonarpur.Similarly, 2 local trains presently running as special services between Ranaghat-Bongaon and Sealdah-Sonarpur have been introduced o­n a regular measure.Extension of 2 pairs of Howrah-Singur and Howrah-Haripal upto Tarakeswar has also been made permanent.

5.Extension of trains :

Katwa- Jangipur Road– DEMU (73035/73036) service has been extended upto Nimtita. o­ne Passenger train running from Ranaghat to Cossimbazar (63131/63132) has been extended to Lalgola. o­ne pair Rampurhat-Pinargoria Passenger train has been extended to Dumka. Two EMU services–Sealdah-Basirhat and Sealdah-Kalyani have been extended to Hasnabad and Kalyani Simantarespectively. o­ne EMU service from Naihatito Majerhat via Circular has been extended to Ballygunj.

6.Increase in Frequency :

Frequency of Sealdah-LalgolaPassenger (53183/53184) starting from Sealdah at 10.15 hrs. has been increased from 6 days a week to daily.

7.Change in terminal of EMU service :

One local service originating from Sealdah at 17.38 hrs. to Barrackpore has been shifted to Bidhannagar Road. To facilitate passengers at Sealdah,new stoppages has been given at Sodepur and Barrckpore for the service from Sealdah to Shantipur 31531 starting from Sealdah at 17.52 hrs.

PUJA SPECIAL TRAINS

Eastern Railway has made elaborate arrangements to run 45 pairs of Puja Special Trains thereby creating additional capacity of 2,14,296 berths which will run during October & November, 2015. These Puja Special Trains will be run for various destinations viz. Alipurduar, New Jalpaiguri, Kamakhya, Puri, Nautanwa, Raxaul, Patna, Haridwar, Anand Vihar (T), Lokmanya Tilak (T) etc.