Diwali spl train tickets sold out in 20 minutes

HOUSEFULL

V Ayyappan | TNN
July 18, 2009

Chennai: Chennaiites seem to be making their festival travel plans quite early as berths in all trains for Diwali were sold out within 20 minutes after bookings opened on Friday.
Tickets were sold out for all trains from Chennai to southern towns like Madurai, Tiruchi, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil and Kanyakumari. Reservations for Nagercoil Express and Podhigai Express has been closed while the rest of the trains already have wait lists extending to 200 or more.
According to Southern Railway, counter clerks had to inform people tickets were sold out soon after bookings opened at 8 am. “There are lots of people hailing from southern towns who live in Chennai and they all go home for Diwali. So everyone would have been waiting to book their tickets the day it opens as they know it won’t be available later,” said a senior railway official.
Online bookings too have gone up substantially with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) receiving more than five lakh transactions a day for train tickets alone. Growth in the number of rail passengers has been steady in the last three years and has stayed in the range of 8 to 14%. “This trend of tickets getting sold out on the first day of booking has been on for the last three years, especially for trains on the occasion of Diwali and Pongal. Similarly, trains to Kerala too get booked fully when booking opens for Onam festival,” the official added.
After monitoring booking patterns, Southern Railway had introduced special trains to cater to the festival crowd. It had operated a record 174 special trains, including 56 Diwali specials in October 2008. This is 55% more than the number of trains operated during the same period in 2007.
Though all trains to southern towns are operated from Egmore railway station, Southern Railway also operates a couple of special trains to southern towns.