Wedding aboard the Luxury Train at Rs 5.5 Crore

If destination weddings are too passe for you, and you have Rs 5.5 crore to spare, get ready for a `travel-to-a-destination' wedding aboard the Maharajas' Express.

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation is planning to start a Wedding on Wheels package, a week-long extravaganza aboard the luxury train, which will merge both wedding festivities with the experience of traversing through Incredible India. 

Aimed at the uber rich, who want to give their guests a unique taste of India along with all the glitz and glamour of a desi wedding, an officer from IRCTC said, "There will be the best of everything, managed by experts to make it one of the most memorable events for the bride, groom and their families. We are finalising the finer details and will launch these packages on demand.We are hoping it's a huge success." Of course, this weddingcum-tour package comes at a jaw-dropping price. Booking the entire train for 88 passengers for a luxury eight-day wedding package will cost approximately Rs 5.5 crore for the Heritage of India tour, which travels from Mumbai to Delhi through Ajanta, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaipur, Ranthambore and Agra. There are other locations covered in other packages like the Indian Panorama tour that starts and ends in the Capital, taking passengers through Jaipur, Agra, Gwalior, Khajuraho, Varanasi and Lucknow.

The train has 24 coaches fitted with 43 guest cabins - 20 deluxe, 18 junior suites, four suites and one presiden tial suite. The general fare per person for the eight-day Heritage of India tour starts at $6,840 (approx Rs 4.5 lakh) and goes up to $23,700 (Rs 15.8 lakh) for the presidential suite.

Apart from hosting weddings, IRCTC is also planning to rope in corporates and Bollywood to make their plan a success. "We are open to the idea of not only hosting grand weddings but also top-of-theline corporate events, movie shoots, fashion events, etc in one of the most luxurious trains of the country," said Pinakin Morawala, spokesperson of IRCTC, west zone.

Sky's the limit in glass-top coaches

Come December, passengers can stare into the skies in the new glass-ceiling coaches being introduced by IRCTC.

These coaches have been jointly designed by IRCTC, Research, Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), and Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Perambur.

Three such coaches, each costing Rs 4 crore, will roll out from ICF in December this year. The first coach will be tagged in a regular train in the Kashmir Valley while the other two will be part of a train travelling through the picturesque Araku Valley on the SouthEastern Railway, said A K Manocha, chairman and managing director of IRCTC. Which specific trains will have these special coaches has not been decided yet.

The main aim objective behind this project is to promote tourism and woo upscale tourists from both India and abroad, said Manocha, adding, "We believe such coaches would also give a fillip to rail tourism in India." 

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/