In what can be termed as small mercy for passengers, the railways has decided to not bring in the premium tatkal concept for the first ever Tatkal Special train — a train in which all tickets will be under the tatkal quota — to be run on Indian Railways. The Tatkal Specials will run between Kurla LTT and Madgaon on Central and Konkan Railways. The reservation for the trains open on May 8 for the first trip on Saturday.

According to a CR statement, trains 01005 (between Kurla LTT and Madgaon) and 01006 (between Madgaon and Kurla LTT) will run on May 9 and May 16 while trains 01045 (Kurla LTT to Madgaon) and 01046 (Madgaon and Kurla LTT) will run on May 10 and May 17.

These trains will halt at Thane, Panvel, Roha, Mangaon, Khed, Chiplun, Ratnagiri, Vaibhavwadi Road, Kankavali, Kudal, Sawantwadi Road, Thivim and Karmali, according to a CR statement. The railways, in order to make the trains more appealing, have ensured that their tickets can be booked on the net as well as at the booking windows. The composition — one AC-2 tier, two AC-3 tier, 7 Sleeper Class, 6 General Second Class and 2 General Second Class cum guard's brake vans — also caters to all segments of the travelling crowd.

Railways are betting big on this new segment and the success of Tatkal Specials will see more such trains in the near future, said officials. "For the passenger, while he pays extra tatkal rates, the good part is that there is no dynamic pricing on the tickets. Unfortunately, dynamic pricing of tickets in some cases is making the tickets beyond reach of the common man, especially if he is travelling with his family," said a senior railway official.As first reported by dna, the premium tatkal concept is creating problems for passengers booking on the net with the ticket prices touching the upper limit of three times the fare within seconds.

In its April 18 edition, dna had highlighted the plight of Thane-resident Shyam Nair who booked two premium tatkal tickets on the 16345 Kurla-Thiruvananthapuram Netravati Express and got a bill of Rs 11,904 despite the IRCTC website showing the base fare of each ticket as Rs2,145.

The IRCTC's official explanation was that in premium tatkal, since each class on a train will have just around 10-15 premium tatkal tickets that can be booked from computers nationwide, the booking is so quick that the price changes between inquiry time and booking time. In a matter of much less than a minute, a premium tatkal ticket will reach the upper limit (three times base fare), according to IRCTC officials.