No booking permitted after chart preparation?

Hello
I have tried (unsuccessfully) to book 3 tickets on the Nilgiri express (2761) from Chennai to Ooty.

1 time the webpage told me to book i-tickets instead of e-tickets, 2. and 3. time, i got the message
"No booking permitted after chart preprartion."
after giving passenger, berth and id details...

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Agata

You have to select either i-ticket or e-ticket. You need to book i-tickets atleast 2 or 3 days in advance as they are delivered to the address (in India). For e- ticket , one can book ticket up to chart preparation. Reservation chart will be prepared 2 hours before the train departs. If you booked the e-ticket after chart is prepared ie., less than two hours before train departs, the system will not accept it even though you filled the passenger details.

Thanks for the answer Epicure, I am still a bit confused ..

I tried to book a train, that is leaving on Feb 22, thought it was about time to wrestle with the homepage :-(
Was unsuccessfull with E-ticket (how can I see which trains e-tickets are eligible from), will now try with I-ticket, and have it sent to my hotel ...

There is always an 'information' pop-up informing people that waitlisted tickets can't be purchased via an E-ticket and must be purchased via an I-ticket, as I said, this is only an information pop-up and doesn't indicate that there is a waitlist or that an I-ticket must be purchased, just click 'OK'.

Info for all - Indian Railways will soon allow waitlisted tickets to be purchased via E-ticket, they are adding software that allows this and are at the testing stage at the moment, expect an announcement in the budget in 2 weeks.


The only reason this message should appear is if a ticket was trying to be purchased for a train who's chart had already been prepared (as explained by Epicure), so either you attempted to buy a ticket without changing the date, or the IRCTC website was experiencing problems.

E-tickets are available for all bookable classes in all trains.

I-tickets are OK, and as they're delivered by courier, it's a reliable way to purchase tickets.

Thanks for the input - it helped a lot, but I still havent been trough ...
After I press the buy button, choose the icici gateway, enter information for paying with my foreign credit card, I am redirected to my homebank, confirm my identity, and redirected back again to the IRCTC page ... after a couple of minutes waiting, the pages shows up with a Communication error

I also get an email from the IRCTC, with the same message. Anybody experienced this problem, and got past it?

Best,
Agata

hello ...
i have a 3A ticket from bangalore to kopargaon on 23/02/10 for karnataka express. It's tatus is W/L 9. I have never booked a W/L ticket in 3A. will my ticket be confirmed as i have come to know that there is less chance of an AC w/l getting confirmed than a normal sleeper ticket ?