Booking Indian Rail tickets from abroad: A Beginner’s Guide

pezworld

Actually, you can fill out your home address when you register (NOT when you book tickets, as they won't send tickets to addresses outside India). If you register with a home address, you need to put information in the "Other" boxes in two places (I think): City/State and Postal Code (or whatever they call it). It's the two or three spots where they have pulldown menus that have only India locations. Use the "other" boxes.

You can probably go back and change your profile now that you've registered.

Also, I've found their email customer service to be pretty responsive!

mca2005

hi pezworld,
thanks for responding...acutally i tried that initially and hit the submit button and nothing would happen....maybe the page /code has changed since you registered? I had a couple of friends try it too. in any event, was able to book my tickets....

cookie

Hello,

I am stuck! I can't seem to register on the IRCTC site. I fill out all my details and hit submit... and nothing happens apart from a little yellow sign in the bottom left hand corner saying errors


Any ideas?

when it says residence address and office address,, i have been filling in my home and then the hotel address (where the tickets are being sent). Is this the coorrect thing to do? it's just that if I put 2 english addresses in what would be my preference for shipping? does this need to be an indian address?

thanks for any help!

Yildiz

Thanks very much for all that info. I went to the website to get info. I need to travel from Srirangapatnam to Bangalore Airport. Is train the best way ...I prefer it to buses, unless it makes for a complex trip. My guide books say that the Mysore Bangalore trains stop there ....the Indıan Rail website schedule lists one stop ....at a place called Mandya. Which I cannot see on my guidebook maps! Is this the station for Srirangapatnam?

Also travelling from Cochin to Kannur. I found a train on schedule but it makes 20 stops between the 2 places!! If thats what usually happens, I will just have to smile and enjoy the trip ..... but should I be looking around for more express options? I want to travel during the day.

Nick-H

And now I want to book a ticket it says there's a communication failure.

That'll be a bit like the communication failure that caused the driver booked for 7.30 this evening turn up at 7.30 this morning, maybe

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LindaK

Over the past 10 days I have successfully registered, bought my first ticket, and had it delivered to a hotel in Cochin.
I believe there have been recent changes on the India Rail website, and here is what you MUST do:
1. When registering, only use a valid Indian address (for both home and business). If you don't, the system just hangs there and does nothing. So put your Indian hotel address here.
2. When you buy the ticket, there is no way to change the address. You will have to go to change your profile first if you want to change the address.
3. I don't believe there is a facility for picking up tickets at an office in Delhi anymore - at least that is what the system implied when I purchased a ticket.
Good luck!

pezworld

Well, I hope that's not the case. The system implied the same when I began booking tickets on the site a month ago. I inquired directly via email about the ticket office and got this reply:

Dear Customer,
>
>Kindly note that you can avail the facility of special NRI personal
>collection of tickets, which presently is available at New Delhi Only. The
>collection center is located at:
>
>IRCTC Limited
>New Delhi Reservation Office,
>IRCA Buildings, Chelmsford Road, New Delhi 110055.
>Collection hours: Mondays to Sundays: 24 hours
>
>for this you need to give the above address while booking as your
>delivery address.We retain your ticket in our office.
>
--I'd be surprised if it has changed. If anyone knows, please reply.

pezworld

Update: I just double checked via email, and they have already responded! Here it is:
---
Dear Customer,

Kindly note that you can collect your ticket from our office.

Regards,

Care@irctc.co.in

cookie

You are all fantastic - thanks

butterball

Very useful thread as I have for first time decided to book some tickets before I leave..

I have one question though - I booked several tickets in one session of which all are CONFIRMED apart from one journey ( Jan-Shatabdi to Margao from Dadar on Jan 15th ). I am waitlisted WL4 & WL5 and gave no preference for same carriage or window seats etc. It is a CC train, and I am pretty confident of getting on the train within the 2-3 weeks left. My question is, will the tickets automatically be delivered by separate courier once they become "available" ? If this is say the day before departure, what is the procedure for getting hold of them ?

That aside, are all confirmed tickets booked in a single online booking session ( multiple destinations ) delivered in the same "delivery" ? IE, is the system smart enough to realise this even though you seem to need to pay for each separate set of tickets individually.. ?

KSivani

All confirmed tickets are individually sent by courier, even though they go to the same address. I had five tickets sent on the same day. They did not include that 'intelligence' in their software.

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- Sivani

butterball

I guess it was too much to expect ( 'smart' software ) . Can I asume that the still waitlisted tickets will simply be despatched upon availability ?

steven_ber

I can only guess, but I'd say the waitlisted tickets will also be sent at the same time as the confirmed tickets.

In fact I'm sure they will be sent out.

Your Chair Class tickets should get confirmed, but you could consider purchasing (bookable) 2nd class seats on the same train just in case.

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butterball

That's a good idea steven, and I have been trying to do that for 3 days now ! The IRCTC site is so unpredictable, and at the moment I can get to the booking requirements filling in passenger details etc, but the site just won't proceed to buy / payments. It's been SLOW in the past, but on this particular booking, it just does NOT want to move on how ever many times I refresh

Guess I'll have to persist..

mikewill

I have successfully booked a variety of tickets for V and me for the upcoming trip (leave next Saturday for nine weeks). So far, so good. Even have seats 1 & 2 in FC on the Darjeeling train (managed that last time going up to Ooty too). One small cloud is that we are waitlisted for the Bhubaneshwar to Kolkata leg (2842 Coromandel Express) on 7 February. We are WL 5 & 6, so I guess that is likely to be OK. Steve, Beach what do you think? Apart from looking at our i-ticket history, is there another way of checking what's happening with the waitlist?

Asked to have tickets sent to IRCTC on Chelmsford Road and got an email back almost by return, confirming they are holding them for us.

Mike