Indian Railways prepares new timetable! Once Indian Railways implements its “zero-based timetable”, more than 6,000 unnecessary stoppages of regular train services will be shed! A scientific manner of running train services, the zero-based timetable allows creating more elbow room for goods and passenger carriers, resulting in better speed and efficiency.

The introduction of every train, as well as every stoppage into the zero-based timetable, is justified by operational need on a clean slate, hence zero-based. According to the report, such moves are on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For keeping a stoppage, the criterion is that it should result in a minimum of 50 people embarking and disembarking in a day. According to the sources quoted in the report, on the basis of that, more than 6,000 “unremunerative” stoppages may be removed, in order to make way for efficient running of trains.

 Details of the timetable are not available, but some of the broad principles are as follows, sources said:

* Trains with less than 50 per cent occupancy on average in a year will not find any place in the network. If needed such trains will be merged with other, more popular trains.

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* Long-distance trains will ideally not have stops within 200 km of each other, unless there is a major city on the way. A total 10,000 stops have been listed to be scratched — however, officials clarified that the removal will only be in respect of certain trains, and there will always be some or the other train that will serve these stations.

* All passenger trains will run on a “hub-and-spoke model”. The “hubs” will be cities with a population of a million or more, where all long-distance trains will terminate. Smaller places will be linked to the hubs through connecting trains, as per the timetable. “Major tourist destinations and pilgrimage centres will be classified as hubs,” a senior Railway official told The Indian Express.

* Suburban networks such as the Mumbai locals, will not be affected by the new timetable, the official said.

* The timetable will rationalise the use of the rolling stock available with the Railways. Trains will have either 22 Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches or 24 Integral Coach Factory (ICF) coaches. The LHB coaches are manufactured mainly at the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala; the ICF coaches, which currently make up the bulk of the rolling stock but which will be ultimately phased out, are built in Perambur, Chennai. The timetable also envisages use of 18-coach overnight trains. The order for this standardisation has been issued.