Summer vacations: Take this Indian Railways trip; you are never going to forget it

It can be the honey moon, or the ride of a lifetime! Indian Railways is striving hard to set its house in order by taking several initiatives including expanding network, working on speed, improving infrastructure and other modernisation tasks, but paucity of funds is one of the hindrances. Indian Railways, however, is devising new means to overcome this bottleneck, and in one such move it has decided to add saloon to mail/express trains to increase earnings. Now, passengers will be provided exclusive travel options to reach their destination in comfort. Of course, if they are ready to pay the extra amount. What will it take? Just log onto IRCTC website and check out the offer.
 
 Facing stiff competition from low cost airlines, Indian Railways is in the process of launching many innovative features to perk up revenue, and one of these is the introduction of Saloons, which are used by senior railway officials on their inspection duty. Ministers are also entitled to use the saloons during their rail journeys. 
 
Saloon cars, actually known as Inspection Cars, are a specially designed rail coach with two bedrooms, a drawing/dining room, two bathrooms, an attendant`s room and a kitchen. The saloon can comfortably accommodate six passengers, but to avail this exclusive facility, one has to pay the equivalent of 18 first class fares for the same destination in the scheduled train.
 
"We have allowed saloons to be booked by any passenger. It would be added as an additional coach to the existing mail/express train on demand after paying the prescribed rate," a senior Railway Ministry official told IANS. 
 
Saloons can be booked through IRCTC, the railways` tourism and catering wing. Railways has reportedly given written instructions to all zonal railways to allow saloons to be attached to all scheduled mail/express trains across the country, but Rajdhani, Duronto, Shatabdi and Gatimaan expresses have been exempted from this initiative.

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Since the saloon is also equipped with cooking facility, customers will be free to make their own catering arrangements. Railways expect that introduction of exclusive travel through saloons will create demand in tourist destinations, and would also be a much sought after service by newly married couples.