In view of the heavy rush in several Special trains, the Railways has decided to run 20 pairs of clone trains on select routes from 21 September. A senior Railway Ministry official said that these would be fully-reserved trains.
A clone train is train which will be running with the same number like the actual train to carry waitlisted ticket-holders.
Waitlisted passengers will be informed about their berths in the clone train soon after the reservation charts for the original scheduled trains are drawn up four hours before departure.
“19 pairs of the clone trains will run the rakes of Humsafar Express, consisting of 18 coaches each, while one pair will run on the Delhi-Lucknow route with 22 coaches. The reservation period for these trains will be 10 days,” the official said.
Clone Train Ticket Price
The official said that the fares of the clone trains with Hamsafar train rakes will be charged as per the fare structure of Humsafar Express trains while the clone train on the Delhi-Lucknow route will be charged as per the Jan Shatabdi Express fares.
Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav, during a virtual press conference on 5 September, had announced that the clone trains would be run on routes with higher occupancy
Complete List of Clone Trains
"Considering the huge demand for travel on specific routes, Ministry of Railways has decided to run 20 pairs of Clone Special trains (list annexed in the link below) from 21.09.2020," the ministry said in a statement.
According to Railway officials, clone trains would be in addition to the 310 pairs of trains currently in operation.
The Railways suspended passenger, Mail and Express trains in the wake of the nationwide lockdown from 25 March.
Shramik Special trains were run to ferry stranded migrant workers, students, pilgrims and tourists from 1 May. As many as 15 pairs of Special trains were pressed into service from 12 May and 100 pairs of time-tabled trains from June 1.
From 12 September, the Railways has also started operation of 40 more pairs of time-tabled trains.
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