Festive Special to Gorakhpur Gets Gurugram Halt

GURUGRAM: Commuters from Gurugram heading home to Uttar Pradesh for Diwali and Chhath will have one more direct train this season. North Western Railway will run a weekly Jodhpur-Gorakhpur special, with a halt at Gurugram, starting October 1.

Train number 04829, Jodhpur to Gorakhpur, will run every Thursday from October 1 to November 26. The return train, 04830, will leave Gorakhpur every Friday from October 2 to November 27. That works out to nine trips in each direction over the festive period.

The outbound train leaves Jodhpur at 4.15pm on Thursdays and is scheduled to reach Gorakhpur the next day. In the other direction, it departs Gorakhpur at 11.25pm on Fridays. Its Thursday departures from Jodhpur fall on October 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, and November 5, 12, 19 and 26.

## Route and halts

After Jodhpur, the train stops at Merta Road, Degana, Chhoti Khatu, Didwana, Ladnun, Sujangarh, Ratangarh, Churu, Sadulpur, Loharu, Mahendragarh, Rewari, Gurugram, Delhi Cantt, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Sitapur, Gonda and Basti before reaching Gorakhpur.

For Gurugram passengers, the useful stretch is east of Delhi: Bareilly, Sitapur, Gonda, Basti and Gorakhpur are all on routes where festive waiting lists on regular trains out of Delhi tend to run long.

## Coaches

The special will run with 20 coaches: two second AC, four third AC, eight sleeper, four general class and two guard coaches.

A railway official has estimated that around six lakh commuters across Gurugram and Rewari stand to benefit. Both districts have a large workforce from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar employed in factories, offices and services, and festive travel usually means long waiting lists on trains from Delhi. A service that boards within the district saves many of them a trip into Delhi first.

## Demand for more

Passenger groups along the route have welcomed the train but want more. Ramniwas Patoda, president of the Dainik Rail Yatri Mahasangh, has written to the railway minister seeking that the train run daily instead of weekly. He has also asked for halts at Satnali, Kanina, Dahina and Pataudi Road, the last of which would serve passengers on the Gurugram district side.

Patoda has said the service has earned the railways good revenue over the last three years, when it was run in earlier seasons.

Railway authorities have asked passengers to book in advance through the IRCTC website or at reservation counters rather than waiting for the last-minute rush. Exact timings at individual stations can be checked on the railway enquiry number 139 before travel, as the schedules shared so far for intermediate halts have varied.