You could have heard about new modernized features of Indian railways like bullet trains and trains with highly sophisticated coaches. Did you take a note of visually impaired friendly train? Indian Railways is all set to introduce its blind friend train…! This is one of the much appreciated initiatives taken up by the railways. Such moves made by government are aimed to make the society a better place to live in and make all the individuals a self-sufficient. This train is set to travel between Mysore and Varanasi. Let’s check out the key aspects of this train here under:

• This train is absolutely special…! Wondering, why it is so…? In our country, it is the first ever completely visually challenged friendly train. The successful implementation of this train has also led to the initiation of such other trains across the country.

 

• All the coaches of this Mysore-

 

Varanasi express (train number: 16229 / 16230) are provided with metallic Braille signage. This initiative has provided great ease to the blind people to recognize the indications like toilets, alarm pull chains, berth numbers and emergency windows.

• Earlier, the madras railway station was made blind friendly. About 400 metal signage scripted in Braille were installed at the station describing various needy places like distance of entrance, platforms, counters, toilet, schedule of trains and others. The menu card in the canteens is also made available in Braille. We can state that this move has inspired the Mysore-Varanasi express.

• Prominent people in the Indian politics are involved in this prestigious project. Pratap Simha, the Member of Parliament for Mysore constituency, has financed for this project. This took an expenditure of 2 lakh rupees and time of about 2 months to turn this idea into a reality. Inauguration of the train was also done by him. He played a key role in turning the Mysore railway station blind friendly in November 2015.

• Good news is that, an announcement was made in the recent past that there are plans of implementing this feature in a few other major trains running from Mysore. The trains worth mentioning in this context are the Chamundi express and the Mysuru-Talguppa express.

• IRCTC has stated that all the other features like booking and cancellation of tickets, pnr status railways and others will remain unchanged for these trains.

• Bind people have always found railway journeys risky. Finding their confirmed berths, needy places aren’t easy tasks for them. This initiative can put an end to all these troubles faced by them. The emergency exit plan is also scripted in Braille on the boards, so as to enable the blind people to trace the directions to escape in case of emergency.

In its first journey, though any visually impaired persons are found hardly, we can expect this train to gain a wide popularity among blind passengers sooner or later. This move from Mysore has inspired many other train stations to take up this initiation. Statistics say that around 118 train services and railways are set to follow the path laid by the Mysore-Varanasi express. This trend seems to be soon implemented on a large scale enabling the blind people to travel independently.