India’s first ’private’ train, Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express schedule, facilities: 5 things to know

New Delhi: In what could be Railways going ahead with its 100-day agenda of handing over operations of two of its trains to the private sector, the Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express would be the first train to be operated by private players, a PTI report said. The Railway Board is mulling on a second such route, which too would be within the 500-km distance range.

The train, which is currently parked at Anand Nagar Railway station will be handed over to private players after an open-bidding process for operating it. The custody of the trains will be transferred to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which will pay for it, including their lease charges, to the financing arm, IRFC.

"These two trains will be given on an experimental basis and will start running within 100 days. We have been trying to identify routes that have high congestion and connect important tourist spots. The route for the second train will also be identified soon," IANS quoted a railway official as saying.

The Tejas Express will offer premium services and comforts to the passengers. Here are five things to know about Indian Railways’ new Tejas Express train:

1) The train will have aircraft-like personalised LCD entertainment-cum-information screens fitted at the back of every seat, on-board Wi- Fi facility, comfortable seats and mobile charging points.

2) The seats will have an orange and yellow colour scheme that will match the exteriors of the train.

3) It will also have Anti-graffiti vinyl wrapping and a swanky mini pantry.

4) Tejas coaches are fitted with LED lights and fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) interior panels, modular toilets and smart windows with motor-operated venetian blinds.

5) These trains will have automatic doors in the passenger area and sliding coach doors.

The Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express was announced in 2016 and has been recently introduced in the new time table released on 1 July.

The Tejas Express (train number 12585) will depart from Lucknow Junction at 6.50 am and reach New Delhi at 1.35 pm. On the return journey, (train number 12586) it will leave from New Delhi at 3.35 pm to arrive in Lucknow Junction at 10.05 pm. Barring Sunday and Thursday, the train will run on all days of the week.

The new Tejas Express train will have 23 chair cars and executive class coaches. The first Tejas train is running between Mumbai and Goa since 2017.