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

beach

Almost all the regular train tickets of the Indian Railways can be booked over the net. A few points needs to be kept in mind to avoid any confusion later on. Even though you can book from abroad, this service is mainly addressed to the domestic passengers. In other words they do not deliver the tickets abroad.

How does the overall scheme work?

You select the train & book the tickets over the net. Pay with the credit card. Tell them if you will collect it personally or they need to deliver to the address given by you. In 2 to 3 days the ticket will be delivered to you to the India address by courier. As simple as that!

Registration:
To start with you need to do a small (not too small!) registration with the railways reservation site. You need to provide a bit of personal data and addresses. No credit card details are asked at this point. You need to give both residential and office address. You have an option of selection the address for delivery. Also if you have given an address at the time of registration and your ticket needs to be delivered at a different address, it is possible (to give a different delivery address) at the time of booking the ticket.

(Note: PIN is Postal Index Number, the six digit Indian postal code. It will be asked during the registration and booking)


Plan the Travel:
You need to know three things at the first screen of booking.
From & To stations
Date of travel
Class of travel.

Indian railways identify each of its stations with 2 to 4 alphabet codes. (For example New Delhi-NDLS, Whitefield –WFD).If you are not sure of the code there is a small yellow icon next to the field. Click this and enter the text name known to you. For example if you enter DELHI, a list of stations with codes in bracket would appear. Pick the one you want.

A caution: Many of the Indian towns have two names (at least!). Railways have officially accepted only one of it. So if you are searching be aware of this fact. Search will not give result if you are not searching the official name. Mostly one name is the local name and the other is the English name. At places the English names are official and at others it is the local name.

Chennai (MAS) is the official name of Madras (English)
Quilon (QLN) (English) is official name of Kollam
Varanasi City (BCY) is the official name of Banaras (English)
Note the codes. They are derived from the English name and always the local name need NOT be the official name.

It takes about 2 to 3 days to deliver the tickets. So never select a date, which is too close to the date of booking. In other words book well in advance. You can do it a maximum of 60 days in advance.

Select the class of travel. See my earlier post ‘Knowing the Indian Train’ if you need to know what each class ‘feel’ like.

Once you’ve done with the above, the site give you list of probable trains, which suit the details, you have given. At this point you need to be a bit ‘knowledgeable’ about each of the trains. For example some may be super fast trains, some may be regular express trains..etc. A number of important trains are listed by Steven at ‘Train Information’ at the same sub forum.

One easy way is to explore each of the trains there itself at the site . You may select each of the trains and press the keys [Get Fare] or [Show Availability] or [Show Route] etc. The comparison of fare would give you an idea about the type of the trains. Also this will show you the explanations of the charge that would be collected from you. The availability chart list the reservation status for as few nearby days of your selected travel date. If it looks full, you may select the next available date of go for a different train. The Route key will give you the full list of stations it cover with the ‘Timings’ of arrival and departure at each stations.

Also note that there are may weekly, bi-weekly express trains.If the date selected by you does not coincide with the train's schedule, it will not be listed.You may miss that train even before it has started!

Once you have selected the train, you would be taken to the next page for filling further details. See if the details accepted are the same desired by you.
Enter the boarding point station. This is a confusing point !

What is the difference between From station and Boarding point?

In all most all cases the Boarding point for you will be same as the From Station. From and To stations can’t be changed once the reservation is made. But later on if you plan to board the train from different station on the route, you can do that without loosing the reservation status. Just go to a PRS (Passenger Reservation System) counter with the ticket a and give a request to change the boarding point. No charges are collected for this. In other words they will wait for you up to the boarding station in the train before the seat is marked absent and allotted to the next waitlisted passenger.

Select the Quota General or Ladies. There are special quota seats allocated for the female passengers. (In India females are called ladies!)

Do not put a tick at the Senior Citizen check box, if you are not an Indian Citizen! There is a 30% concession for people above 60 years old for long distance fares. You need to carry some proof showing both age and nationality during the travel.

Enter the name, Age, Sex and Berth choice details asked for all the passengers.
You can book a maximum of 6 passenger per ticket.

Now you need to tell them if you will collect the tickets personally (only at New Delhi at present) or to be couriered to you at the local address given by you. At this stage you can give any local added here. Select the City listed and give the PIN code. You SHOULD have the PIN known to you for giving the address of delivery. Once you have entered the City, Click the ‘Pin Code covered for delivery ’ to see if your pin code is listed there. As a thumb rule almost all the Cities and even mid size town are covered. No big worry on this as long as you know the PIN code of your address.
Typically people give the local hotel’s address. A local friend’s address, a local office, an institution known, another travel colleague already in India etc are viable options. Some Hotels do this service with a nominal charge. Checkup with them before you give the address.

If possible you can opt for collecting the tickets personally also. You need to produce the details like the PNR & Transaction ID. Also the proof of identity to be produced. The credit card used to book the ticket is OK. Alternatively, you can authorize someone else also to collect the ticket on your behalf. A letter from you a photocopy of the passport are sufficient for them the collect the ticket on your behalf.

A nominal fee is charged by the railways as service charges (for courier etc) and 1.8% of the total cost is charged if you are using credit card. A host of other payment options are listed. But if you are doing from abroad, VISA or MASTER cards are the most viable options.

You would be asked the card details like any other online payment processes.

Once you have booked, you will be given the Transaction ID and the 10 digits PNR (Passenger Name Record).

PNR is the most important code in tracking the status of your ticket etc at any later stage.

Please Note:
You cannot cancel online. The ticket needs to be collected and produced at the reservation counters for cancellation. Online-booked tickets can be cancelled and the refund will only be credited to the account used to book it. This is a safety precaution as no one else can misuse it.


Foreign quota tickets cannot be booked online.

There are some limitations on the number of tickets (each with a maximum of 6 persons) that can be booked per month for each user name.

You need to have the physical ticket with you to board the train. This is the only accepted document within the train to claim the reservation.

Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Limited is the Indian Railway’s agency running the online reservation facility. Many useful details are also available at the site.
www.irctc.co.in

__________________
Hampi info

Jeroen

One note - the system only works at certain hours (Indian time, so in Europe you have to book in the morning) and as that's not clearly explained on the website it had me wondering what I did wrong.
The guys in Delhi were surprised I only picked up one ticket as most people apparently plan their whole trip using the site and collect lots of tickets at the same time.
Thanks for the good info, Beach!

__________________
'To see the world in a grain of sand; and heaven in a wild flower; to hold infinity in the palm of your hand; and eternity in an hour'

-m2-

useful info beach, thanks!

volga_volga

can you find out Indian train timetable on internet without registering on the above site? it's just I am registered at 100s of sites and can never remember my passwords, just wanted to be able to check timetable w/out booking

__________________
Tibetan Orphanage School in China
My other favourite place is Pakistan Travel Forum

volga_volga

well OK I tried to register (it's quarter to eight Indian time) and the site is driving me crazy! after having registered I tried to log on and my password does not work and the "forgot password" function does not function either!!

any internet site to look up Delhi to Jammu and back schedule? thanks

LuAnnandJawahar

You don't need to register for any site to have acces to schedules and fares. Look at
http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

__________________
Reject violence.

guerik

Has anyone had experience with picking up the pre-booked tickets?
Do you pick up all of the tickets at once or do you get them at each departure station? And which area of the station do you pick them up from?

old india hand

Seems that the only ticket pick-up location (at present) is in Delhi,
otherwise it must be by courier delivery to a named person - as below.

>> Dear Customer,
>> Kindly note that mention the name of person to whom the ticket
>> will
>> be deliver and give the authority letter so we can deliver the
>> ticket to the mention person,However you can also get the delivery
>> of your tickets at the hotel you are planning to stay in any of
>> the
>> cities listed covered under our Places of Delivery. For that you
>> will have to nominate an official (by name / designation) of the
>> hotel to receive the ticket on your behalf. You must also advise
>> the
>> hotel to receive the ticket on your behalf and retain it for your
>> arrival. We will deliver the ticket to that person on production
>> of
>> the e-mail/fax from you, quoting the PNR Number / Transaction ID
>> of
>> the ticket.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Himanshu Negi
>> care@irctc.co.in,
>> www.irctc.co.in

SHIMLA

A few inputs :

1. The internet reservation facility is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, except Sundays. On Sundays the reservation closes at 2 p.m. All times IST.

2. As beach has mentioned, advance booking can be done 60 days in advance. This is EXCLUDING the date of journey. For example, anyone wishing to travel on the 15 th of August can book one's ticket earliest on June 16.
However, if one is booking one's ticket from an intermediate station where the train reaches the next day, one can book, in effect, 61 days in advance excluding the date of journey.
For example a passenger wishing to travel by the Golden Temple Mail from New Delhi to Amritsar on August 15 can book his/her ticket earliest on June 15. This is because the 60 days are counted from the originating station of the train; in this case the Golden Temple Mail will leave Mumbai on August 14 and touch NewDelhi the next evening, ie. on August 15!
Some short distance inter-city expresses are exempted from this 60 days rule and their advance reservation can be done only 30 days in advance; in some cases it is just 7 days in advance!

3. A maximum of 4 tickets can be booked by a person in a month, over the net.

4. Each ticket booked over the net attracts a service charge of Rs.40/- for lower class and Rs.60/- for upper class, in addition to the train fare.

__________________
Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop !

steven_ber

I picked up tickets for Delhi to Guwahati, and for Calcutta to Delhi, both were picked up at the reservation office, you can pick up ANY pre-booked Internet tickets from this office.

The reservation office is not in the main New Delhi station; it is located on Chelmsford road about 200 metres south of the station (see map below).

When you walk into the entrance of the reservation building, walk straight ahead, you will see a large room to your right with loads of reservation windows and many more people, go into this room then turn left, as you walk along you will see a room (number 17) on your left, there will be one or two members of staff in there and probably nobody else, this is where you pick up your tickets.

Make sure you have your printed confirmation slip (it will be e-mailed to you when you purchase your tickets), this has your PNR number and your booking number, also take some ID just in case.

Ignore any touts in New Delhi station or near the reservation building, they will try to tell you that the reservation office has moved or is closed for a public holiday, they may even say that "the staff have gone to London to see the Queen", ignore them or tell them that your going to get a refund on a ticket.

Telebooking Counter,
Room No.17,
New Delhi Reservation Office,
IRCA Building,
Chelmsford Road,
New Delhi - 110055

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
.
How to get helpful replies to your transport/Itinerary questions.



Train information.

jarman_ah

I have just finished booking my first two tickets on the www.irctc. co.in booking site. It took half a day. I kept getting sent back to start again. But I finally did it!

The first time I got knocked back was because I didn't allow for the time difference between zones; when I logged on I was told about the site's opening hours, but, of course, from my point of view they should have been open hours before!

Next time I came on-site, I got knocked back because I typed in the name of the station where it said "name of station". That's a no-no. They mean the CODE for the station, but they don't make that clear. They just tell you that when you type in "Agra" you are using two many characters, that there is a maximum of four (how's that again?). Well, we eventually sorted that out and found the window with the station codes.

Next time I got sent back to start because I had taken too long at one of the questions (I think it was looking up a postcode for the hotel I am having the tickets sent to) and the "session had expired".


The NEXT time I hit the back-button half-way through to check whether I had entered the berth-type correctly, and that was fine until I got right up to the last step, when the site informed me that I had to start again because at some time I had hit the back button, which is a BAD THING.

So I did it all again. Then the site told me that the station I had entered was incorrect for the train that I wanted, so back to the table for the correct code. I did this, but the station I was after (Nizamuddin, Delhi) does not have a listing under "Delhi", nor under "Nizamuddin". So I returned to where I'd been to see if the site could work this out. It could.... it then gives you a new list of stations to choose from -- but, too late! I had hit that back button again, and you know what that means.....

The next time I NEARLY got knocked back was when I hit the "buy" button and a new window came up asking me which bank (out of two) I wanted to use as my "gateway". One bank I had never heard of (well, they only give you its initials), and the other bank, Citibank, I have no dealings with, as they are often bad-mouthed on travel sites for exorbitant fees and commissions on transactions. Decisions, decisions! Terrified that my session might be coming to an end any second, I opted for the devil you know, etc, and suddenly, it seems, I am a Citibank customer. How much that button is going to cost me, I don't know.... but, at least, I beat their session cut-off time!

Finally, I got through all the stages, and the vary last question, after your credit card number and expiry date, asks for your "CW number". Howzat? I hadn't heard of this, so I put everything on hold while I went looking through google for this. Found it! It's the last three digits on the BACK of your credit card number. Back to the site. Wonder of wonders, I haven't busted my time limit and it's still "up". Wonder of wonders, they didn't count an extra google window as hitting the back button. Wonder of wonders, they hadn't closed down for the night, for lunch, or whatever. I hit the button, and actually bought a ticket!

The journey that I bought takes 3 hours and 38 minutes. Buying the ticket took nearly twice that long. The last thing I saw on the page was a button: "buy another ticket?" I thought I'd wait till my nerves were stronger.

The moral to this story: do what the experts above have told you: get ALL the information ready and in front of you before you start. Or, better still, buy at the counter in Delhi!

steven_ber

Sorry you went through such hell, but it was great fun reading about it.



Welcome to India.

honnzik

Hi,
I have booked two tickets Delhi - Jaisalmer, but I am only on the waiting list.
I have wl position W/L 8 and W/L 9.
Now, there is WL 21/21.
If I understood well, I am still on 8th and 9th place.
What is probability that I will get these tickets ?? (I am traveling on the next Sunday).
How does it work if I don't get it ?? What should I do to get it ??
For the next day, there are RAC 5/RAC 5, what does it exactely mean?
Thanx very much
Honza

beach

What is the class??

You'll almost get confirmed if it is 1/2 or 3AC sleeper or 2sleeper.

RAC means you'll get a seat any way. In side the train they'll issue the berth according to the availability.

50-60% of the cancellations happens during the last few days of travel. So check by saturday. You'll find the message CONFIRMED!!!!

honnzik

It's 3AC ..
Will I get tickets for the same place in the train - I mean, when I have 2 tickets on waitlist, is there possibility to get one ticket to one coach and the second one to another coach ?? (my girlfriend wouldn't be happy .. :-) )
Thanx
Honza