The Shri Jagannath Yatra tourist train will embark on its eight-day journey on Wednesday, covering famous pilgrimage sites of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, the Railways said on Monday.
The tourist train with focus on the Puri temple in Odisha will be run under the Railways’ ambitious Bharat Gaurav initiative. The AC train will leave Delhi Safdarjung Railway Station on Wednesday, officials said, adding there will be a total of 10 AC three-tier coaches in this train which can accommodate a total of 600 passengers. Tourists will have options to board the train at Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Tundla, Etawah, Kanpur and Lucknow stations.
The tour will have its first stop at Varanasi, where tourists will visit the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the corridor connecting it and witness the ‘aarti’ performed on the banks of the Ganga. The train will then reach Jasidih railway station in Jharkhand from where the tourists will proceed to visit the Baidyanath Dham Temple. It will then travel to Puri where a two-night stay will be arranged in hotels. In Odisha, tourists will visit the Jagannath Temple and then they will be taken to Sun Temple at Konark and temples built during the Kalinga period in Bhubaneswar by buses.
Gaya in Bihar will be the last destination where a visit to the Vishnupad temple will be covered. The train will return to Delhi on the eighth day of its journey on February 1. The special train will cover around 4,000 km during this entire journey. Freshly cooked vegetarian meals will be served on board. The train has also been fitted with an infotainment system for the entertainment of the passengers as well as for public announcements. Enhanced security features of CCTV cameras and guards will be deployed in each coach, the officials said.
The Bharat Gaurav tourist trains are being run by IRCTC, an undertaking of Indian Railways with the aim to showcase places of religious importance across the country. IRCTC has fixed a starting price of Rs 17,655 per person for the eight-day journey.
