The festive season is seeing an unprecedented rush in railway stations and train compartments. Everyone wants to go home to celebrate the festivals with their family. Visuals of packed train compartments where there is no place to even stand are going viral on social media. A viral thread talks about the reason behind the rush and none of us had anticipated that.
In a viral thread, a Twitter user who goes by the name Balram Vishwakarma talked about the rush that we are seeing in long-distance trains. He says that the Indian Railways has reduced the number of sleepers and general coaches. The user wrote, “Indian Railways quietly reduced SL class and GEN coaches for shit load of trains & converted them into 3AC and 2AC coaches to increase revenue. Because of this, it’s gotten harder and harder for folks to get Sleeper Class tickets.”
He added a picture where the Indian Railways revealed the number of coaches that were in trains earlier versus now. The chart revealed that AC 3 coaches have been increased from six to ten. While the general and sleeper coaches have been reduced to just 2.
A lot of people in these long-distance trains are workers who have migrated to metropolitan cities from states like Bihar and Jharkhand. Many people cannot afford the tickets of a third AC coach. When you have many people who want to go home and tickets aren’t affordable a situation like this is likely to arise.
Balram’s tweet has gone viral on Twitter. It has fetched over 4.6K likes and 560.6K views. The thread rightly brings to light the fact that many people rely on the railways because it is affordable and it reaches almost all the nooks and crannies of the country.
The thread has got people talking. Here’s what they had to say.
In times like these when a major chunk of the population relies on trains, maybe increasing the frequency of such long-distance trains and increasing the number of coaches would be a wise decision. But looks like that isn’t the case.