Railways to add more coaches to trains

PATNA: The East Central Railway (ECR) has decided to add few coaches to various passenger trains running on different routes under its Danapur and Samastipur divisions. The step has been taken to reduce the rush of passengers who commute daily.

ECR’s chief public relations officer (CPRO) Rajesh Kumar told this newspaper on Monday, “Earlier, the railways had attached coaches to different trains on a temporary basis during the festive period, but now, the step is permanent.”

The Patna-Gaya passenger train (53213/53214) and Patna-Bhabhua Intercity (13243/13244, 13249/13250), which have been running with a load combination of 20 coaches, will now have 24 coaches each. The Patna-Jayanagar passenger (55527/55528), Patna-Sasaram passenger (53211/53212) and Samastipur-Jayanagar passenger (55513/55514) will also have 24 coaches, instead of 18.

“The railways has also decided to attach few second class coaches to these passenger trains to provide comfort to the passengers, especially women, children and elderly people,” the CPRO said.

Face detection camera: The railways has installed a face detection camera at the passenger reservation system (PRS) counters of the Patna Junction on a trial basis to curb activities of touts.

According to Danapur senior divisional commercial manager (DCM) Adhaar Raj, the camera can recognize faces of those visiting the PRS counters repeatedly to book the tickets. The camera gives signal about the activities of suspicious people,” Raj said and added more cameras would soon be installed at other major PRS counters.

Recently, the railway protection force (RPF) men had arrested 24 touts from different places of the ECR and seized illegal journey tickets worth Rs 6.4 lakh from them.