Around four months ahead of Deepawali, berths in most of the long distance trains out of Chennai to the southern and western districts have been booked and the festival is on Saturday, October 29 and advance reservations for trains leaving Chennai on Thursday, October 27, commenced on Wednesday and berths in the overnight trains were sold out in a matter of minutes.
It is said that a few tickets were still available in the morning trains on October 27 and the registered users in Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation were automatically directed to the option of booking in other trains. Further, many passenger reservation centers were also opened in different locations.
The Southern Railway officials have said that with the increase in access to booking tickets through the Internet and even mobile applications and information about the total number of tickets booked in trains to the southern and western districts were not immediately available, but officials hinted that most tickets were booked online in excess of 75%.
It is also added that berths in the most sought after trains towards Madurai and Tirunelveli Pandian, Podhigai, Nellai and Kanyakumari expresses were sold out, but tickets were available in the morning trains Vaigai and Guruvayoor expresses. Similar was the case with Cheran and Nilagiri expresses on the Coimbatore route, while tickets were available in the morning Shatabdi and Kovai express trains.
