Tickets for trains like Shatabdi, Rajdhani may go down, says Railway minister Piyush Goyal

Passengers could pay less for popular trains like Shatabdi and Rajdhani express. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that railway fares are likely to go down during the off-season or when trains are not fully booked. 

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the statement came after the Railways board announced a review of its flexi-fare system on December 11. The letter mentioned the formation of a six-member committee to review the Railways’ flexi-fare system.

The flexi-fare system, launched in September 2016, led to an increase in fares by as much as 50 per cent, with a hike in price for every 10 per cent of berths booked.

Meanwhile, the Indian Railways has ditched the tried-and-tested method of tying crackers to the tracks to



alert drivers of approaching signals, in favour of a system that can ensure trains no longer move at a snail's pace in foggy weather.

The device -- Fog Pass (Fog Pilot Assistance System) or FSD -- is GPS-enabled and can continuously calculate the distance of the train in relation to the next landmark, enabling drivers to know when exactly a signal is approaching.

The national transporter has recently installed 4,920 such devices in the most fog-affected railway zones -- northern, north-central, north-eastern and north-western.

Plans are afoot to install an additional 1,175 such devices in two more zones by this Friday -- east-central and northeast-frontier -- to take the total to 6,095, covering the most-affected zones.