Railways to switch to new numbering system of its Train

New Delhi, September 23, 2010: For easy identification of trains carrying passengers, the Indian Railways was switching to a new numbering system from December 2010.

"From December 20, 2010 the Indian Railways is switching to a more scientific, logical, uniform and computer friendly five digits system of numbering trains in place of the existing four digit system," Railway sources said today.

As per the new system, all the scheduled and regular express and mail and superfast trains, including Durantos, Yuva Trains, Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Jan Shatabdi Express, Garibrath Express, Sampark Kranti Express and all category of trains that have a mail/express character during any part of their journey would be started with a prefix of the digit 1 (one) on the four digit numbers of the existing trains.

That means all the numbers will be converted to the new five-digit system by simply adding a prefix of digit 1 to the existing four-digit numbers, they clarified.

The special trains run by the Railways to clear holiday or festival rush shall be numbered on the pattern of the mail/express trains except that they shall have the prefix of digit 0 (zero).

This would apply to all special trains, whether superfast, express or passenger train in character, running between any pair of destinations. This numbering scheme would also apply to special trains run on Full Tariff Rates (FTR) basis.

The passenger trains and the suburban trains are also proposed to be renumbered and brought under this new five-digit system and separate notifications for such changes would be issued by the respective zonal Railways, the Railway authorities said.

Five digit train numbering scheme has become necessary in view of the four digit numbering scheme having got exhausted as Indian Railways runs more than ten thousand trains every day, Railways said.

Need has also arisen to integrate the passenger and suburban train services in various information systems such as Control Office Application, Passenger Reservation System and other software applications, it added.

All Related News | Mail | Print | Write to Editor