New Delhi, June 30
The Northern Railway timetable which comes into effect from tomorrow is passenger friendly. Apart from increasing the speed of 28 Mail/Express trains and eight passenger trains, the timetable incorporates introduction of two pairs of Mail/Express trains, six pairs of passenger services, extension of 10 Mail/Express trains and enhancement in the frequency of six pairs of trains.

Northern Railway General Manager V.N. Mathur released the timetable at a press conference here today.

Explaining the salient features of the timetable, the Chief Public Relations Officer of Northern Railway, Mr Rajiv Saxena said the two important trains that were being accelerated were the 4033 Jammu Mail and the 2229 Lucknow Mail. While the running time of 4033 Jammu Mail had been reduced by 40 minutes, the running time of 2229 Lucknow Mail had been reduced by 15 minutes.

Another significant feature of the new timetable was the rescheduling of Express trains with effect from Friday. The 2057 New Delhi Jan Shatabdi Express will now depart from the New Delhi railway station at 3.40 pm instead of 2.10 pm. The 2058 Chandigarh Jan Shatabdi Express will depart from Chandigarh at 10.30 am instead of 9.15am.

The new services that are being introduced are the Ambala Cantt-Sriganganagar Intercity Express (daily) from Ambala from July 2, the Hazrat Nizamuddin-Udaipur Intercity Express (daily) after gauge conversion, the Amritsar-Attari DMU (daily) and the Gorakhpur-Ayodhya passenger train (daily) from Friday, the Lucknow Farrukhabad passenger (daily) after gauge conversion and a railbus between Moradabad and Hatimsarai from Friday.

The rescheduling entails change in the departure time of 11 Express trains and arrival time of eight Express trains. According to the new schedule, the 4887 Chandigarh Express will leave Kalka at 9.45 pm instead of 9.20 pm.

The 2318 Akal Takht Express from Amritsar will leave Amritsar at 5.45 am instead of 5.30 am. The 2566 Bihar Sampark Kranti Express will leave the New Delhi station at 2.35 pm instead of 6.45 pm.

Mr Saxena said six pairs of trains were being extended, including the 2653/2654 Kochuveli Hazrat Nizamuddin Kerala Sampark Kranti Express that would be extended to Chandigarh from July 9.

He said the numbers of 10 Express trains had been changed. Prominent among these were the 4229/4230 Lucknow Mail renumbered 2229/2230 from July 10, the 5265/5266 Bihar Sampark Kranti Express renumbered 2565/2566 from July 13 and the 2403/2404 Pooja Express renumbered 2413/2414 from July 10.

He told TNS that the logic behind changing the numbers was two-fold. ``When the first digit of the train number is two, it indicates upgradation to superfast category. It also indicates that the primary maintenance of various trains has been rationalised and shifted from one zone to another.’’

Numbers of passenger services as the 1 KU Kurukshetra-Ambala Cantt Shuttle and the 3 EDP/4 EDP Delhi-Panipat EMU had been renumbered. The timetable had also announced the augmentation of trains. This included increase in the passenger carrying capacity of the Patna-Amritsar-Patna Express, Himachal Express.

Additional stoppages were being provided on 14 Express trains including the 2057/2058 Chandigarh Jan Shatabdi Express at Sonepat in lieu of the cancellation of 4521/4522 Bathinda-New Delhi Intercity Express.

The Northern Railway General Manager said they had requested the Railway Board to reduce some stoppages in order to speed up trains.