Railways to Run Over 100 Festive Special Trains Across Key Routes
Indian Railways will operate more than 100 special trains this festive season, with extra coaches and an upgraded IRCTC booking system to handle the rush.
Indian Railways will operate more than 100 special trains across several routes during the coming festive season to handle the annual travel surge for Durga Puja, Diwali, Chhath and other festivals.
The special services will connect states including Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, offering additional seats and berths to bring down waiting lists. Extra coaches are also being attached to some regular trains to accommodate more passengers.
The trains announced so far by different railway zones cover a wide span of routes, with most services scheduled between early October and late November. Frequencies vary from daily runs to twice- and thrice-weekly operations, and several pairs replace or supplement existing services.
Among the long-distance routes listed are Kanpur Central–Asarva, Agra Cantt–Udhna, Prayagraj–Udhna, Subedarganj–Valsad, Ranchi–Anand Vihar, Kanpur Central–Kolkata, Howrah–Raxaul, Sealdah–Patna, Sealdah–Gorakhpur, Kolkata–Madhubani and Howrah–Lumding. Some services, such as the Subedarganj–Panvel pair, will run with 22 LHB coaches, while others such as the Howrah–Lumding and Kolkata–New Jalpaiguri trains will have general, sleeper and AC accommodation.
On the ticketing side, IRCTC has taken steps to improve the booking experience during the festive period. These include adding more servers, upgrading the Next Generation e-Ticketing (NGeT) system, rolling out a new user interface and deploying anti-bot technology to help genuine passengers.
According to IRCTC, the NGeT system's capacity has been raised to nearly twice its earlier level through hardware and software upgrades, with new servers replacing older infrastructure. Software optimisation and architectural improvements have further increased its ability to handle booking requests.
The beta version of the redesigned user interface was introduced on July 15, 2026. The new interface presents information more clearly and allows passengers to view availability across Sleeper, AC 3 Tier and AC 2 Tier classes on a single screen. IRCTC said around 89 per cent of all reserved tickets are currently booked online.