Indian trains are the life line of the country. Every day more than 10,000 trains running through out the country.From the month of December you will be able to hear five digit train number till now the train number is of 4 digit.
According to the Indian Railway ministry:
The Indian Railways will switch over to a five-digit numbering system for passenger trains from the present four-digit one from December while the names of the train will remain same. Numbering scheme shall apply to special trains run on Full Tariff Rates (FTR) basis. The passenger trains and the suburban trains are also proposed to be renumbered. However, it will not cover freight trains.
How it will work:
According to the new system,
- Only a prefix of the digit ‘1’ will be added to the existing ‘four-digit’ numbers, which would cover all express/mail and superfast trains — Duranto, Rajdhani, Shatabdi , Yuva train, Garib rath, Sampark kranti express etc.
- On the other hand, number of special trains run by the Railways to clear holidays or festival rush, would start with digit ‘0’ with its remaining four digit numbers styled as the numbers of equal mail or express trains, running between the two destinations.
Here is what the document says :
A. For all Mail/Express trains including Duronto, Rajdhani, Sh.a. tabdi, JanShatabdi, Sampark Krantl, Jan Sadharan, Garlb Rath, Super-fast trains etc.
- All Mail/Express: trains including Duronto, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, JanShatabdi, Sampark Kranti, ‘Jan Sadharan, Garib Rath, Super-fast trains, trains which for a part of the journey have a Mail Express character in an) one direction, and which .presently’,have a four digit number, shall be prefixed with the digit ‘1’. the existing four digit train numbering system for these trains shall continue.
- Wherever the four digit numbering scheme shall get exhausted under the plan at para 1 mentioned above the prefix of ‘2’ shall be utilized as the first of the 5 digits instead of digit ‘1’ and for the rest four digits, the existing numbering scheme would be followed.l
- All the remaining passenger trains; some of which may be having a four digit number,like Mail Express trains, but do no have a Mail/Express character on any part of their journey, shall not be prefixed bu digit ‘1’ or digit ‘2’ but shall be freshly numbered as per the numbering scheme enumerated below.
Read More on the Official Document ( Source )
Reason for changing the train number:
- New numbering system will be scientific and logical.
- The number of existing train is more than 10,000 but in case of four digit number system only 9,999 trains is covering.
- The new system will help in monitoring the movement of trains more effectively on all-India basis.
- It will be helpful to the management in giving the train information to the public.