Bringing much joy to travellers, the Indian Railways has already started working on a major upgrade, which includes converting all non-AC sleeper class and general class coaches to AC coaches. Now that’s what we call taking the travel experience to a whole new level. By Kumar Shree
Indian Railways, the backbone of affordable transportation in the country, is taking new steps to introduce some much-needed upgrade, that too at no added cost.
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As per reports, the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala has already started working on the prototype for the upgraded coaches. The number of berths in these coaches will be increased from 72 to 83. The railways is initially referring to them as AC three-tier Tourist Class and has planned to make 230 coaches in the first phase, each of which will cost INR 3 crores.
Even though the cost of developing these ‘economical’ coaches is more than what’s incurred for a regular AC three-tier coach, the railways is positive about recovering the cost, since these coaches will also have additional seats, which will procure more revenue.
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While that is all about the sleeper class coaches, the unreserved general class coaches will be upgraded into a 100-seater AC chair car. Even though any confirmation about the same is not available, some reports suggest that the initial idea was to have 105 seats in such coaches.
This can be seen as a landmark step towards improving train journeys in India, especially, since the railway body is trying hard to raise the travel standards while ensuring to keep it affordable at the same time.
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