Problem with Online Rail Ticket

My wife ordered and purchased a 2AC ticket on the Bhubaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani (for July 4) over the Internet last week. She wanted to see how/if it works and how long it takes to get the ticket in hand. To the credit of the Indian Railways she received her ticket in only three days as promised.

Now the rub: She requested a Side Lower seat when she booked the ticket and was apparently issued a “waiting list” ticket. The ticket says RAC/4.

According to my landlord, that means that she in number four on the waiting list. According to the information booth at the railways here, they said it is an unconfirmed ticket an she will find out the seat number upon boarding the train. No guarantees as to whether it will be a Side Lower seat…

Does anyone know what "RAC/4" means?
Should she just cancel this ticket, get the refund, and then get a 2AC ticket using the Foreign Tourist Quota option?

Quick reply.....

Keep the ticket!

More shortly.

"RAC" stands for "Reservation against cancellation". If there are four cancellations before the journey time, the ticket will get confirmed. Even if the ticket does not get confirmed till the time of journey, your wife will be allowed to travel on the train. She'll have to travel sitting and will be allotted a berth in turn as and when there's room on the train, en route. Of course, there's no guarantee that she'll get the berth of her choice.

If she gets a confirmed ticket on the Foreigners' Quota, she can always cancel the RAC ticket.

I am confused! Can you double check the ticket and tell me how much it cost?

Also, could you tell me the train number and date of travel? (that is printed on the ticket)


Train 2443 is only waitlisted 2 (4- 7-2005 = WL 2/WL 2)

This means that she is 2nd in the waitlist and nobody has cancelled yet.

To explain it better, the following is the present waitlist for AC3 on 4th July.

WL 29/WL 3

This means that the person who bought the last ticket was the 29th person to be added to the waitlist, however, there had already been 26 cancellations, the person is now number 3 on the waitlist.

There is no Foreign Tourist Quota available in any class on that train.

I may be wrong, I will check, but I was under the impression that RAC ticket holders were not allowed to board a Rajdhani.

Shimla has rightly explained about RAC . But from our experince it has seen that RAC seats (not berth ) are usually / commonly alloted to the side lower seats/berth only ie, the side lower berth is alloted to 2 (two) RAC ticket holders , where they can sit only ( two of them have to share the berth ). If the ticket gets confirmed , the passenger will be alloted a berth depaending upon the availability. No guarantee of her choice. she can only request the TTE in that coach about her preferance.

Oh balls, I completely misread the original post, I read WL when you had put RAC.

So ignore my previous post.

I'm just off to the optician.

There is only One Rajdahani ( 2443 ) on 4th July , Monday, As 2421 dont run on Mondays. To see the present status of her reservation , one can always avail the "Current Passenger Status " facility (on line) by submiting their PNR No.

I have seen RAC passengers in Rajdhani Exp. Though not very common . I have even seen passenger holding waitlisted ticket has been allowed in Rajdhani . though not for overnight but for 5hrs , two stations too. ( Howrah - Gaya/ Dhanbad )

In a vain attempt to prove I can read...

The waitlist for that train in AC2 goes up to a minimum 69.

The length a waitlist is allowed to go to can give indications as to the expected number of cancellations.

I've always thought (and this is very general) that if you half the number of waitlisted numbers they allow, you get the likely number of cancellations at less busy periods.

Then if you half that number again, you get the likely number of cancellations at medium busy periods.

Then if you half that number again, you get the likely number of cancellations at maximum busy periods.

Considering the current waitlist is only WL/2 and that the same train for the previous week already has over 30 cancellations, I would say you're virtually guaranteed to get a confirmed berth.

RAC as has been posted earlier stands for Reservation Against Cancellation while WL of course is Wait Listed. The hierarchy is as follows: Confirmed - RAC - WL.
A certain amount of RAC are issued on every train based on previous cancellation trends before they start issuing WL. While RAC 4 is more or less a 100% confirmed seat getting a berth of choice is not always possible on RAC.

Thanks for all the quick responses! Sorry I did not include more detail.

It is indeed Train number 2443 and cost 2685 Rupees.

* One more question - The ticket says "New Time Table From 01-07-2005". The enquiry booth here in Puri could not say what the new time would be. They said they would only know two days prior. Is there any way to find out any sooner?

Not that I'm aware of.

I will be happy if I have the new train times by the end of August.

It is also unlikely that new timetables will be printed before August, even though the trains will run to the new timetable from 1st July.

There are rarely big changes though, so just check two days prior to travel.

Sorry , I dont think this is possible. At the most you can check the On line time table / press release daily on the Indian Railways Web site. Generally it is seen that the timing dont change drastically in trains like Rajdhani , Shatabdi. Maximum 15- 30 minutes .