08 October,2020 05:47 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B Aklekar
Railway passengers with confirm tickets will be allowed to board the trains. File pic/Suresh Karkera
Finally, select outstation trains from Mumbai to major cities in Maharashtra for the general public, including the Mumbai-Pune Deccan Queen, will begin from October 9 as a part of Unlock 5. The major connections include Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai Solapur, Mumbai-Gondia and Mumbai Nagpur.
"Five pairs of special trains will run between CSMT and Nagpur, Pune, Gondia and Solapur from October 9 till further advice. These specials run as fully reserved trains and only passengers with confirmed tickets can board these trains with COVID-19 norms and SoPs in place," Central Railway (CR) chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar confirmed.
The five pairs of trains include the Mumbai-Nagpur Duronto special daily, the Mumbai-Pune special (Deccan Queen), CSMT-Pune special (Indrayani Express), Mumbai CSMT-Gondia (Vidarbha Express) and Mumbai CSMT-Solapur (Siddheshwar Express).
Bookings of these trains can be done at all reservation counters and the IRCTC website as usual from October 8.
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CR officials said that the Deccan Queen special train will run with the existing set of coaches as of now till the new LHB rake arrives from the manufacturers, Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. The dining car of the train is still under design.
Harsha Shah, president of Pune-based Railway Pravasi Group said, "This is the first time that regular Mumbai-Pune services will begin after the lockdown was imposed in March 2020."
Ministry of Railways also approved 39 more trains across the country on Wednesday with five from Western Railway (WR) and seven to eight from Central Railway, but dates of these trains will be announced at a later stage.
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