Indian Railways said around 14,9025 tickets having 290510 passengers have been booked for the IRCTC special trains that were made available for online booking from 10:00 AM today. "Within 2 hrs of opening, 1,49,025 tickets booked for the first set of 73 special passenger trains to be operationalized from June 1," said Indian Railways.

"At 12:00 Hours, 73 trains were available in the system for booking. 1,49,025 tickets were booked having 2,90,510 passengers," said a railway spokesperson.

IRCTC has made 73 out of the 200 special trains available for booking on its website by 12:00 PM today. Indian Railways is gradually firing the code on its e-catering website for the 200 trains that will run from June 1. This is being done to avoid rush and risk of a website crash. Also, code firing takes time, said Indian Railways.

On Wednesday, railways issued a list of 100 pairs of trains that will operate from June 1. The list included popular trains such as Durontos, Sampark Krantis, Jan Shatabdi and Poorva Express.

This is the second slew of special passenger services that marked the Railways graded restoration of its trains which were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

These trains will have both AC and non-AC classes and fully reserved coaches. The railways said these trains will be "special trains run on the pattern of regular trains", covering tier 2 cities and also major state capitals like Mumbai and Kolkata.

Officials said from now on, all such special trains will have both these categories to accommodate all classes of passengers. The trains that will run from June 1 include 17 Jan Shatabdi trains and five Duronto Express trains.