Indian Railways Services: Top 5 Amenities Offered For Comfort Of Passengers

Besides offering ticket reservation and cancellation services, Indian Railways also offers several amenities for passengers. These services are available both in trains as well as at stations to make the travel comfortable and enjoyable, noted Indian Railways on it's official website- indianrailways.gov.in. From bed-rolls facility to first aid amenities, railway provides a variety of options to suit customer's personal requirements. "Keeping in view the availability of resources, first priority is to provide basic amenities, at all railway stations and trains according to the nature of the traffic dealt with and the status of the train and station", said Indian Railways.

Here are 5 amenities offered by Indian Railways:

1.Bed-rolls are supplied to passengers in AC First Class, AC 2-Tier and AC 3-Tier Classes in all trains. However, bed-rolls in Garib Rath Express trains and in sleeper class of mixed Duronto Express trains are supplied to passengers on demand, on payment of stipulated charges.

2. Most of the important trains have pantry car facilities. Catering is also arranged in trains where this facility is not available. Passengers can contact the train conductors/coach attendants or other authorised catering staff of Railway for availing the catering service. Most important stations also have vegetarian and non-vegetarian refreshment rooms and light refreshment. Children under 5 years of age are provided food in Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express trains without any charge, noted Indian Railways.

3. Guards/train superintendents or pantry car managers are equipped with first aid boxes. The front line staffs are also trained to administer first aid to sick persons. In case of any medical emergency, passenger can approach the travelling ticket examiner/train superintendent who will try to arrange relief through on board facilities and try to locate doctors among passengers of train, mentioned Indian Railways.

4.Instructions exist for provision of wheel chair at stations. This facility is provided, duly escorted by coolies (on payment) as per present practice. It has been decided that Zonal Railways may introduce 'Sarthi Seva' at stations to help old and disabled passengers requiring assistance at the station and strengthen the existing services for enabling passengers to book Battery Operated Cars (BOC), porter services on payment basis in addition to the existing pick up and drop and wheel chair services, said Indian Railways.

5. Cloak rooms and safety lockers are also available at major stations where luggage can be kept in safe custody. However, only luggage that has been locked is accepted in the cloak rooms. Waiting Rooms are also available at major stations for use by genuine passengers. These can be used free of cost on production of journey tickets for a few hours till the connecting train arrives