The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will launch its first passenger train called Tejas on Lucknow-Delhi route. The project lays down seeds of privatisation for Indian Railways as this will be the first time such an arrangement has been implemented.

Giving an idea of how the arrangement will work in Tejas, Railway board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav had recently said that IRCTC will have the right to design the interior, food menu, other services for the passengers of the train, the locomotive, driver, guard and safety maintenance will be from Indian Railways.

Railways has identified two routes for this, Lucknow-Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad. This train will leave Ahmedabad at 06:40 hours and will reach Mumbai at 13:15 hours. In the return direction, the train will leave Mumbai at 15:40 hours and reach Ahmedabad at 22:25 hours. This train will also run 6 days a week, except Thursday.

Here are six things to know about Lucknow-Delhi Tejas

1. This chair car train will operate 6 days a week except for Tuesday and will cover the distance in 6 hours and 15 minutes. It will have one executive class with 56 seats and nine chair cars having a capacity of 78 seats each. The total carrying capacity of the train will be 758 passengers.

2. You will be able to book tickets for this train only on IRCTC website irctc.co.in, its mobile app “Irctc Rail Connect" and online travel portals. You will not be able to book its tickets at railway reservation counters. The advance reservation period will be of 60 days.

3. The train will have different fares for lean, busy and festive seasons. February, March and August months of the calendar year will form the lean season. There will be no tatkal quota or premium tatkal quota in these trains. There will be only general quota and foreign tourist quota. Foreign tourist quota of 5 seats in executive class and 50 seats in chair car will be available for foreign tourists.

4. Free-of-cost travel insurance of Rs 25 lakh will be provided to all passengers. Executive lounge facility at New Delhi railway station may also be provided at a reduced rate.

5. Onboard infotainment services will be available in IRCTC trains to the passengers. Sale of merchandise good onboard may also take place. The coach will also be provided with RO water filter in addition to the packaged drinking water bottle. IRCTC is also planning to include regional dishes on the menu.

6. IRCTC is planning to extend the facility of collecting passengers’ baggage from their homes and deliver to them in the train on their seats and then again from their seats to their destination stay point on payment. Modalities for the same are being worked out with vendors for this purpose. Passengers will be able to travel without worrying about their luggage. Luggage will be insured.