After a delay of over two hours, the railways' ticketing website Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) was back up again to take bookings for limited passenger trains which will run from tomorrow.
Within 10 minutes of the sale window going live again, the third A/C tickets on the Howrah-New Delhi route for tomorrow's journey were all taken.
Earlier, shortly after the online bookings opened at 4 pm, the IRCTC, burdened by the load, crashed in no time. Expressing regret, the railways said "bookings will be available shortly".
"Data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted," the railways tweeted.
According to the ministry of railways, train services will begin on 15 Rajdhani routes and the fare would be equivalent to that of the super-fast train.
The railways will run 15 pair of trains - which means 30 return journeys - from Tuesday, almost 50 days after it stopped its passenger services amid the lockdown to stop the coronavirus pandemic.
The passengers won't need a pass to reach the stations, they only need to show the tickets.
The passengers are encouraged to carry their own food and drinking water. Dry, ready-to-eat food and bottled water shall be provided on demand inside the trains on payment basis.
Also, online cancellation of tickets will be permitted up to 24 hours before the scheduled departure of train. No cancellation is permitted less than 24 hours before departure of train.
Additionally, the cancellation charge will 50% of the fare.
(Inputs and image from hindustantimes.com)