Jodhpur to Amritsar by train

Hello,
I've read a number of threads on traveling from Jodhpur to Amritsar and am planning to take the train. The problem is, I haven't booked (or even registered) on cleartravel or https://www.irctc.co.in/ yet and my trip to India will be in November, with this long journey about 8 weeks away. The booking sites are already showing waitlisted tickets only and I'm a bit worried. Is there still time to book the ticket, or is there a better option (e.g. buy a one day Indrail pass and get a booking on a tourist quota)?
Any ideas gratefully accepted!

Are you talking about Jodhpur to Makhu?

There's no Foreign tourist quota on that train.

Hi. Yes, i meant to makhu. The best tickets are already at WL10 or thereabouts Is there any chance of getting a pair of confirmed tickets with these, or is there an alternative that doesn't involve going via delhi?

No chance of getting confirmed.

What date and class do you want to travel?

Around 14 or 15/11. We have flights from Amritsar down to Kochi on the 18th and wanted to stay for at least a couple of nights. Looks like we might have to revise our plans!

You can consider going from Jaipur to Amritsar. There are seats available in sleeper class for 14th November.

Sounds reasonable. I'm not so keen on getting sleeper on a long train like that though... Currently our plan is:
Arrive Delhi 04/11
Delhi -> Agra 06/11
Agra -> Jaipur 07/11
Jaipur -> Jodhpur 10/11
Jodhpur -> Amritsar 14/11
Amritsar -> Kerala 18/11
I had hoped to get a night in Bikaner to break up the Jodhpur to Amritsar journey, but that looks unlikely what with not having booked trains yet! It looks like the two best options are to either fly from Jodhpur to Amritsar (and blow a fair bit of the travel budget) or to go to Jodhpur first, then Jaipur and then head to Amritsar via Delhi. Does this sound reasonable.

Regarding booking tickets, how long does it take to register for a cleartrip or irctc.co.uk account in your experience? I know I need to send a passport scan and request the account - am following instructions on seat61 for that...

That is difficult to answer. Should take around a week, in some cases it has taken more than that. There were reports that one can book from Makemytrip also.

The important thing seems to be that when you get your Mobile Verification Code you need to log in to IRCTC before you try to synch your Cleartrip account. The last instructions that I saw don't make this clear and if you attempt it the wrong way round you get into a cyclical problem.

We opened an account for my wife a couple of weeks back in 48 hours. I don't think that makemytrip is really a viable option as their Official policy is that they don't take non-Indian credit/debit cards and you only find out if your card works by trying it.

Makemytrip.com for Rail Bookings

Switch it around

Del-Amritsar on the 6th (morning Shatabdi)
Makhu-Jodhpur on the 8th has availablity
Then Jod-Jaipur
Jaipur-Agra
Agra direct to Delhi airport

(does your Amritsar-Goa flight go via Delhi?

Can we do that!? The flight is already booked: Amritsar-Delhi-Kochi.

Hello,
Thanks so much for all the advice!
I've fixed the first part of my itinerary now - we're doing what I said I didn't want to (but it hopefully gives us more time in Amritsar and also means we don't have to mess around with catching a flight at the connecting airport):
06/11: Delhi -> Jodhpur
10/11: Jodhpur -> Jaipur
13/11: Jaipur -> Agra (arrive late evening)
We're then planning to do Agra -> Delhi and Delhi -> Amritsar. We'd like to see the Taj at sunrise and then either head straight to Delhi to catch the afternoon Shatabdi to Amritsar, or leave later, stay in Delhi and then on the early Shatabdi to Amritsar. The Delhi-Amritsar leg looks fine, with tickets available, but the Agra to Delhi leg is really booked up, especially the evening Shatabdi. Is it worth a punt and just trying to get a taxi/use a tourist quota to try and get to Delhi on time? There seem to be very few mid morning trains from Agra to Delhi that haven't come for 100s or 1000s of kms - I'm wary that late running might risk missing a connection in Delhi. What're your thoughts?

Also, out of interest, I'm happily booking on cleartrip (I rang the irctc number and they confirmed my SMS OTP in a few minutes - my first experience of Indian train customer service is really good, especially after all the stories I'd read/heard!). But when I changed my irctc.co.in password (as advised by the registration email they sent) the system stopped letting me log on. It hasn't affected my booking, but has anyone else experienced this?

18109 (Tundla 16:36, Amritsar 07:50) has availability in 2A for the 14th onwards

Tundla is about 22km from Agra

Tundla... I have interesting memories of that station at night involving a urine-soaked rat.. and a waiting room.