Railways charging extra for superfast trains that are 95% times delayed

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Rs 11.17 crore! That’s how much North Central Railway (NCR) and South Central Railway (SCR) have levied from its passengers for booking in superfast trains. However, a recent investigation by CAG shows, these ‘superfast’ trains have been delayed almost 95% times.
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Railway Board has defined superfast trains as the ones that run at an average speed of 55kmph. Given the fact that most express trains with exception to a handful runs on that speed, passengers are charged extra for most long distance train travels.

The study done between 2013-14 to 2015-16 in NCR and SCR shows that these trains reached the destination late between 13.48% and 95.17% of the days on which they ran. In total, 21 superfast trains were delayed on 3,000 days out of 16,804 days because they failed to attain the 'superfast' speed, according to a TOI news report.

Currently there is no policy by which the railways will refund money to passengers automatically for delays. It’s only when a person files a ticket deposit against reservation (TDR) against a train delayed for more than three hours is a refund possible.

Also 'superfast' surcharges vary for different class of coaches. For example, it is Rs 15 for general coaches, Rs 30 for sleeper, Rs 45 for AC (chair car, AC-3 economy, AC-3, AC-2 classes) and Rs 75 for AC First/Executive class which were effective from April 1, 2013, as per the TOI news report.

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Agra divisional commercial manager Sanchit Tyagi told TOI, "There are scores of factors which lead to trains not achieving their superfast speed, thus causing delays. Some the prominent factors are the maintenance of tracks, signal glitches, emergency brakes and accidents which contribute in the late operations of railways."



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