Western Railway has once again proved its mettle and established its eminence with the running of India’s first “Promotion on Wheels” special train in association with Indian Railways Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), promoting the soon to be released multi-starrer movie HOUSEFULL 4.
This train departed on 16th October 2019 from Mumbai Central Terminus of Western Railway to the National Capital – New Delhi with the entire star cast of the rom-com movie.
According to a press release issued by Shri Ravinder Bhakar – Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, following the suit of innovative ideas, Indian Railways & IRCTC has come up with “Promotion on Wheels” which will be instrumental in promoting & publicising Art, Culture, Cinema, Television, Sports etc. through trains.
In pursuance of this, Western Railway and IRCTC have come in coordination with Filmmaker Sajid Nadiadwala along with Fox Star Studio & Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment to promote their next most awaited film “Housefull 4”.
This train is a special 8-coach rake vinyl wrapped with the creative artwork of the movie “Housefull 4” and made its debut journey from Mumbai Central at 15.15 hrs on 16th October, 2019 & will reach New Delhi at 14.10 hrs next day. The star cast of the movie “Housefull 4” consisting of Bollywood actors Shri Akshay Kumar, Shri Riteish Deshmukh, Shri Bobby Deol, Ms. Kriti Sanon, Ms. Pooja Hegde, Ms. Kriti Kharbanda and Shri Chunky Panday, boarded the train from Borivali station alongwith media persons and will travel upto New Delhi.
The actors were highly ecstatic with this promotional journey and expressed their joy & enthusiasm through their twitter handles. Akshay Kumar tweeted, “It’s a Housefull of smiles as the #HousefullExpress journey kickstarts! Fox Star India also expressed their happiness on being part of this trains’s maiden journey.
The train on reaching Borivali station was swooned with movie buffs to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars, but all thanks to the well coordinated security arrangements by W. Rly’s RPF & city police, it was a smooth ride. The area for the entry was suitably cordoned to avoid any untoward incident. Shri Sunil Kumar – Divisional Railway Manager of Mumbai Central Division alongwith other senior railway officers were also present on this occasion to monitor the security arrangements & other aspects.
The entire star cast and the crew expressed their happiness on the arrangements made available by the Railways at the station and also onboard the train. This train on its journey to New Delhi also had halts at Surat and Kota stations wherein it garnered adequate publicity amongst the movie fans.
Shri Bhakar also stated that Railways have approached many major production houses with upcoming films to use these FTR (Full Tariff Rates) trains to facilitate Pan-India publicity and promotions of films across the length and breadth of the country.
These production houses have the liberty to come up with their new ideas or travel routes, as per their requirements, to promote their films along with their star cast & crew. Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) shall be the nodal agency for handling such trains. IRCTC will undertake attractive and thematic Vinyl Wrapping of these promotional trains, keeping in view that the trains will be criss-crossing across the country and sure shot publicity and wide mileage would benefit both the production houses and bring laurels to Indian Railways as a mass publicity vehicle.
This initiative thus would be a win-win situation for both the production houses and the Indian Railways. Many big production houses have started showing their interest in this new mode of promoting their films, after the success of the special journey for HOUSEFULL 4.
