After 50 days of suspended passenger services amid the lockdown to stop the coronavirus pandemic, Howrah stations regained life with preparations in full swing for restarting of operations from tomorrow.

The day for the railway staff at the country’s oldest and busiest railway stations started with a thorough sanitisation of the premises. A day before the restarting of passenger train services, the Eastern Railway made elaborate arrangements for screening of the passengers.

While counters with medical teams of the railways have been set up, separate enclosures for passengers from Howrah and Kolkata and the other districts have been arranged.

According to Mr Nikhil Chakraborty, CPRO, Eastern Railway, adequate security arrangements has also been planned for tomorrow. The Indian Railways announced of gradually restarting passenger train operations from 12 May, initially with 15 pairs of trains. These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi Station connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

According to sources in railways, all air-conditioned services will begin on 15 Rajdhani routes and the fare would be equivalent to that of the superfast train.

The trains will be run daily and will have stoppages at Asansol, Dhanbad , Parasnath, Gaya , Pt. Dd Upadhyaya , Prayagraj, Kanpur Central.

Also, the trains will include 1 AC, 2 AC and 3 AC class and will run with nearly full capacity. Booking for reservation in these trains started at 4 pm today and will be available only on the IRCTC website www (dot) irctc (dot) co (dot) in and no counter tickets including platform tickets will be issued.

Sources also informed that the passengers travelling on these trains may not be given blankets and linen. While the temperatures inside coaches will be regulated by keeping it slightly higher with maximum supply of only fresh air.

Wearing face masks on these trains is mandatory while only those without any symptoms of COVID-19, during the screening at the station will be allowed to travel. Notably, the Indian Railway has operated 468 “Shramik Special” trains till this morning across the country. Unlike the passenger trains, the Shramik Special trains include only sleeper coaches and have no stoppages.

Of the total, 363 trains had reached its destination and 105 trains are in transit, according to a communique by the railways.

Meanwhile, one Shramik Speacial carrying 1126 stranded people has left for Howrah from Katpadi railway station in Vellore today while another train carrying around 1,464 passengers including 300 residents of South 24 Parganas is to reach Kharagpur Railway Station tomorrow, according to sources.