Former Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee’s brainchild Duranto Express has run into rough weather with the Railways converting five pairs of these trains into other category. Duranto Express services were at par with Rajdhani/Shatabadi trains and used to run between two cities without any stoppage in between.
The train with yellow and green livery was first introduced between New Delhi and Sealdah in West Bengal in 2009-10 when Banerjee held the Railways’ portfolio. Currently 31 pairs of Duranto Express trains were operating, providing no-stop connectivity between two cities.
With changes coming into effect, five pairs of Duranto Express have been converted into Super AC Express, Shatabadi Express or Jan Shatabadi Express trains. The affected Duranto Express trains run between Chennai and Coimbatore, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram, Ajmer and Nizamuddin, Howrah and -Puri, and Chandigarh and Amritsar.
“The occupancy in these trains was less than 100 per cent. The decision to convert these trains into other category of services will provide additional stoppages and that number of passengers could improve,” Railway’s Board’s ADG (PR) Anil Kumar Saxena told The Pioneer. The train fare will remain unchanged and catering services, as available earlier, would also be provided to passengers in the new trains.
The Chennai-Coimbatore Duranto Express has been converted into Shatabadi Express and will have stoppages at Salem, Erode and Thiruppur. The Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram Duranto will run as Super AC Express having stoppages as Ernakulam and Kollam. Similarly, the Duranto Express between Ajmer and Hazrat Nizamuddin will operate as Jan Shatabadi Express having stoppages at Kishangarh, Phulera, ringus, Narnaul, Neem-Ka-Thana, rewari and Gurgaon.
The Howard-Puri Duranto Express has been converted into Shatabadi Express with stoppages at Kharagpur, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Keonjhar Road, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. The Chandigarh-Amritasar Duranto has been converted into a superfast service with stoppages at Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (Mohali), ludhiana, Jalandhar City and Beas. While there is no immediate plan to convert other Duranto Express trains into different category of services, the Ministry will keep studying the traffic pattern on the remaining Duranto Express to services to take a ‘suitable decision’ in future.