Advance train tickets for Eid sell out in 10 mins on 5th day

Train tickets for the eastern regions will be available on the Bangladesh Railway website, the Rail Sheba app and Shohoz.com at 2pm on Thursday

The demand for train tickets has continued to increase on the fifth day of online sales ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays.

The sale of train tickets for Apr 6 trips on the western routes opened at 8am on Thursday and were sold out within the first 10 minutes.

Tickets for the eastern regions will be available for booking on the Bangladesh Railway website, the Rail Sheba app and Shohoz.com at 2pm.

This year, the Bangladesh Railway has set out the train schedule with the presumption that Eid will fall on Apr 11.

Advance ticket sales for holidaymakers began on Mar 24 and are scheduled to end on Mar 30.

According to the Bangladesh Railway, tickets for Apr 10-12 will also be sold online, depending on the sighting of the moon.

Although the demand for online train tickets was slightly lower on the first day of ticket sales, the rush for tickets has intensified since Eid grows closer.

On Thursday, several trains were fully booked within the first five minutes of sales. All tickets were also sold out at 8:10am, according to the Bangladesh Railway website.

As many as 354 seats in Dhumketu Express, 636 seats in Banalata Express, 288 seats in Silkcity Express, 70 seats in Madhumati Express and 660 seats in Padma Express were available when the sale kicked off at 8am. However, all tickets were sold out by 8:05am.

Similarly, trains to Dinajpur were also fully booked by 8:06am.

Travellers will be able to purchase train tickets for Apr 8 trips on Friday and Apr 9 trips on Saturday.

Advance ticket sales for the return trips after Eid will begin on Apr 3.

Ticket seekers can purchase their tickets to return to Dhaka until Apr 9.

As many as 33,500 inter-city train tickets will be sold ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr this year.

In addition, eight pairs of special trains will also operate on different routes nationwide for Eid.