To reduce serpentine queues in front of ticket counters, Railways will soon introduce thermal printers for printing rail tickets. The thermal printers are likely to reduce the time spent by a commuter at a ticket counter by half. 

Sources pointed out that the Central Railways (CR) has been given the task of procuring 200 printers for Western Railway (WR) and itself.

“The procurement work is in progress and we have still not received the machines,” said SS Gupta, chief spokesperson, WR.

“The trial for the project is on,” said CR chief spokesperson Shriniwas Mugderikar. 

“At present, on an average, it takes about 13 seconds for a commuter to get a ticket over the counter. This includes the printing time and the time taken for monetary transaction. The thermal printer would take only 6-7 seconds,” said a senior railway official, who did not wish to be named. These printers work by generation of heat. The process of printing with the new printer would also cut down appreciably the noise generated by the existing Dot Matrix printers.

At present, the thermal printed tickets are available through the Automated Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs).

However, the railways can only issue daily tickets through the thermal printers and not season tickets. “We doubt if the ink can last for a month or for three months.” added the official.