Indian Rail Website

I know this isn't out there already and I seriously doubt if anyone has the definitive answer but what the hell, here goes.

On the 'Trains between stations' url - http://www.trainenquiry.com/TrainsBetw2stByName.aspx you can stick in a departure and destination station and find out if a train runs between them. I have done this for quite a few and noticed that the initial results show a destination station other than the one input. It does also show a departure time from the destination station and if you select a train and view schedule it shows you the destination you input. i.e. Indore to Mumbai will initially display Nasik Rd as the destination but viewing the schedule shows Mumbai.

Chances are the schedule is right but I can get no confirmation despite filling in web comment forms and e mailing every address I can find for Indian Rail.

Can anyone shed light by any chance? I am keen not to be chucked off a train in the middle of the night many miles form my destination.

Thanks in advance,

Phil.

Why don't you use the website http://www.indianrail.gov.in ?

Log onto this site and use the "Train / Fare Acomodation" tab to check trains between your origin and destination station. You first get a list of all trains running between the selected stations and then on selecting your train, you also get its complete schedule from starting to ending station. You can further check if accomodation for a particular class on that train is available for a particular date.

Very easy and convenient !

Rollins,


Many indian cities have more than one railway station. Bangalore for example has City, Cantonment and East stations.

When a train is passing through a city, it is possible that it does not make it all tha way to the main station (as it might be a dead and and train would have to reverse out) In such cases, the train may stop on one of the outlying station. (e.g. Ernakulam Town vs Ernakulam Junction).

In some cases the name of the station may not reflect the name of the city. Indian cities are not that large, and you should be able to take a taxi or auto to get to your final destination -- as long as you don;t get there is the dead of night.

Well,
I found www.IRCTC site very reliable. I have been booking tickets thru this.
bye for now
usha

Its http://irctc.co.in

HI,
U r rite.Thanks for correcting. u can get thru www.irctc.co.in
and the e-mail-care@irctc.co.in
see ya

Also in Bangalore - Yesvantpur station.

I may try to do a list.

On the Indian Railways website, when you do 'trains between important stations', the default station for Varanasi is Varanasi City, this station gets hardly any trains, Veranasi Junction is the main station.

There are many little problems like this with the Indian Railways website, It would take a book to list them all.

No Steven, the default station in this case is very much "Varanasi Jn".

In any case, I wouldn't term it a problem; its just a technicality one has to observe and rightly so !

Well spotted SHIMLA, instead of 'trains between important stations' I meant 'train/fare accommodation' where you type in the city you want to travel to/from.

If a person tried to find a train from Varanasi to Agra, the 'default' stations (first alphabetically) would be Varanasi City and Agra Cannt, the resulting search would indicate that there are no trains between those 2 stations.

The first 4 results for a search on trains between Mumbai and Cochin were as follows: -

Train No. Train Name Origin Dep.Time Destination

2432 TRIVNDRM RJDHNI *VASAI ROAD 03:50 ERANAKULAM JN -
2618 MNGLA LKSDP EXP *KALYAN JN 09:05 ERANAKULAM JN -
2978 MARU SAGAR EXP *VASAI ROAD 03:50 ERANAKULAM JN -
6311 JU TVC EXPRESS *VASAI ROAD 20:35 ERNAKULAM TOWN

Vasai Rd. & Kalyan are not convenient for Mumbai, yet if a person doesn't know this, they may go ahead and book tickets, likewise they may be confused about Ernakulam, how are they to know that Ernakulam is convenient for Cochin.

I am lucky, I understand the Indian Railways website, but I would imagine many tourists find it very confusing.

I think I've said this before; it shocks me that, in a country with so many gifted computer programmers, the Indian Railway site can be so confusing, and the regional railway websites (with the exception of Southern Railways) are virtually useless.