As the country awaits the launch of the new Vande Bharat sleeper trains, Indian Railways on Sunday provided an overall update for the year so far. Here are some of the highlights.
As of December-end, 136 Vande Bharat train services currently run across India. During 2024 alone, the Railways introduced 62 new Vande Bharat services.
The Amrit Bharat, Vande Bharat’s non-AC sibling that has 12 sleeper coaches and 8 general seating coaches, saw four new expresses introduced in 2024. The latest among them were the Darbhanga–Anand Vihar Express and Malda Town–SMVT Bengaluru Express.
The year also saw the first Namo Bharat Rapid Rail service that launched on September 17 between Ahmedabad and Bhuj.
According to the Ministry of Railways, “Indian Railways operated a record number of special train services during the year 2024”. This included a whopping 13,523 special-train trips during the Holi–Summer season, almost double that of last year.
During the festive months of October and November of 2024 (Puja–Diwali–Chhath), the Railways operated 7,990 special-train trips.
It was not only passenger trains that saw growth. Till November 2024, revenue-earning loading on the Indian Railways rose 3.86 per cent year-over-year to 1473.05MT.
The Railways also said that the RPF arrested 1097 persons till November 2024 under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, with contraband worth Rs 63.7 crore recovered.
RPF assists more than 100 cases of childbirths in trains, rescues 800 children from traffickers in 2024
For the year till November, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) rescued 13,717 children under operation “Nanhe Faristey”, assisted in 163 cases of pregnant women in childbirth during their train journeys under operation “Matrishakti”, and rescued 882 people from being trafficked.
Out of the people rescued from trafficking, most of them were children—761 underage boys and 61 girls. Among the childbirths, 102 cases happened in the trains themselves, where women PRF personnel assisted the pregnant mothers.
The country’s indigenously developed automatic train protection (ATP) system, Kavach, saw a significant push in the year. At least 10,000 locos are being equipped with Kavach, and the Centre has invited bids to cover 15,000km of rail with the technology soon.
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In the fiscal year so far, Indian Railways commissioned a total of 3,433km of rail, including 1,158km in new line, 259km of gauge conversion and 2,016km of doubling. It also said that 6,200 track km rails were renewed with new rails in 2024.
