The Railways has issued new guidelines for travel on special trains from May 12, asking passengers to carry their own food and linen and arrive at stations at least 90 minutes before departure for health screening.
It also said all passengers must wear face masks during the journey and preferably travel light.
The Railways, which has announced resumption of a limited number of passenger services after a hiatus of around 50 days due to the on-going lockdown, said the trains to ply from Tuesday will be air-conditioned and will run on full-capacity on the Rajdhani routes from Delhi to all major cities.
It said it will run eight trains on May 12 — three from New Delhi terminating at Dibrugarh, Bengaluru and Bilaspur. And one each from Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna), Bengaluru, Mumbai Central and Ahmedabad which will all terminate at Delhi.
These special trains will only have AC classes i.e. first, second and third AC.
The movement of passengers as well as of the drivers of vehicles transporting them to and from the railway stations shall be allowed on the basis of the confirmed e-tickets, it said.
The special trains will run between New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi and from these cities back to the national capital.
The IRCTC website began booking tickets for travel on special trains after 6pm, two hours behind the schedule due to a technical glitch but all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold within the first 10 minutes.
