RAC and Waitlists explained.

Charts are not prepared previous night for trains which depart at 11 am.

And as per your example, a station which comes 24 hours after the departing station never has its charting done from the originating station...

As Mr. Murli Dhar explained the rule is always same...

i would have thought so too. though nothing prevents IR from doing charting for all stations at origin itself, in reality, it would be very rare for long distance trains to have charting of remote stations coming after 24 hrs done at that specific station...

My above explanation was derived simply out of an example just to show that passengers should be careful while cancelling their tickets or applying for boarding point change.
Regarding preparation of chart at the previous night for the morning departure trains, the rule is well given in the official websites and even some of the circulars. It has however been noted recently, that for most of the trains it is actually prepared in the late night or morning itself. I have had mentioned the same in a travelogue at IRFCA.
Just to let you know there are actually many trains which has stations seeing charting 2 days prior to its scheduled departure. For example, just visit Indiarailinfo PNR Section. Look out for the PNR's for date 2nd June (2 days from now) and you would see some PNR's mentioning that Chart has been prepared for them.
Kindly try and understand rules for e-ticket and PRS/I-ticket are different.

fair enough. i did not know such cases are frequent.
btw, do you mean to imply that in such cases i-tkt will be cancelled without penalty (even after chart preparation)???

No Sir.
I-Ticket follows the same rules and regulation as that to Counter (PRS Tickets).
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Some of the most common example/reason for stations falling on the 2nd and 3rd day to see chart preparation well before are:
1) They share their quota with previous remote stations. (One would need to go and check the availability status to know the same).
2) They are allotted within Pooled Quota. (I would assume you know the technicalities of PQWL. All PQWL stations see charting at the originating station).

got it! so e-tkt cannot be cancelled online, you have to file TDR & end up with 50% refund (if you are lucky). but i-tkt can be cancelled at counter & you'll pay the minor fee if done 24 hrs before (even though chart is prepared) - is that the correct interpretation?

Sorry for the late reply, thanks a lot, you have cleared out a lot of doubts, but gave rise to some more... Does the system keep track of how which berths are empty for which station pairs? But isn't that technically RLWL? I know that does not apply here since we are talking about Tatkal...

And basically, it is the same berths that are allotted to multiple passengers on the same train during different legs of the journey, right? A lingering doubt I have had for a long time was this. Anyway I will do some more research before asking more questions, thanks a lot for your clarifications!

However, one of my questions was not answered:

Can the railways manually "tweak" quotas for different days? So an overnight train running on a Friday might have more GN and only negligible RL and no PQ as compared to other days?

And are you sure that the Tatkal WL gets priority over General WL?

Yes. Fully Confirmed and Partially Confirmed E-Tickets cannot be cancelled online:
1) Once the chart is prepared.
2) Either one, some or all of the passengers has been confirmed during charting at a previous station (Be it the originating station or a previous remote charting station.
a) If chart is not prepared one may cancel the WL'ed and RAC Tickets but they still cannot cancel the Confirmed Tickets.
b) If chart is prepared and rest of the tickets gets confirmed or stays back in WL or RAC, then again the question of cancellation do not arise.

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For TDR, Confirmed tickets would get back 50% of the base fare (Assuming they do not fall in the exceptional category like delay of train by 3 hours and so on). Waitlist and RAC Passengers shall be liable for full refund (After deduction of clerkage charges). Regular deduction of Online Service Charges/Bank/Payment Gateway Charges would still apply.

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Hope I could make it clear by now.

Thanks for understanding.

thanks for clarifying. what happens in case of i-tkt or prs tkt? if chart is prepared at an earlier station 24 hrs before departure from your destination, and you cancel at the counter, would you get the benefit of the lenient refund rules?

Yes, you do.

Hi, while booking e-tickets for my upcoming journey I selected the "Consider for auto-upgradation" option from the IRCTC website (this option appears at the bottom of the form before you click the Submit button. I did not know then what it meant except what I could make out from the name. I did a little research afterwards and here are what I found:
-Selecting this option enables you for a free upgrade to a higher class, subject to berth availability and random selection by computer, than what you had originally opted for.
-This upgradation facility applies to only those trains that have sleeping accommodation.
-Only full-fare-paying travelers are considered for auto-upgradation. This means differently-abled people, students, and senior citizens (60+ for men, 58+ for women) who get concessions on their tickets are not eligible for auto-upgradation.
-Either all the passengers booked in one PNR will be upgraded to the next higher class or none of them. This is done to avoid splitting a group into different classes. By the way, maximum 6 adults and 2 minors (each, not more than 4 years), can booked in one PNR.
-If upgraded passengers cancel their tickets, they will get refund of the ticket fare for the original class they had originally booked their tickets in.
-From http://www.indianrail.gov.in/upgrade...gers_List.html you can check if you have been upgraded either on the date of the journey or the previous day.

Railway Information on SMS
http://www.indianrail.gov.in/n4nuts.html

I have a question for foreign travelers, simple curiosity. On booking an e-ticket successfully we Indians with an Indian mobile number get an SMS from IRCTC. The SMS mentions PNR number, coach, and seat number; thus the SMS passes off for a valid ticket. My question is when you book a ticket from outside India with a non-Indian mobile number, do you get any such SMS?

chonnochara

It is not possible to register with irctc using a non-Indian mobile number. So no SMS is received. Non-Indians who are outside India need to send a scan of their passport to irctc. I always print off my e-tickets before I leave home.

If you are really interested there is a lot more here

http://www.indiamike.com/india/india...phone-t154338/

I think this is (or was)not true. I have seen people with confirmed ticked with coach/berth details on their tickets upgraded to a higher class and they knew about it only when they looked at the chart on the coach. There was a small note that the original passengers have been upgraded with the coach/berth details mentioned as well.

Hi,

I gathered the information from http://www.indianrail.gov.in/detail_Scheme.html

On re-reading I think you are correct. Waitlisted passengers on upgradation will get confirmed berths. But, confirmed ticket holders on being upgraded "will be allotted to the RAC/WL passengers of that class. If there are still some berths vacant, the vacant berths will be allotted to confirmed passengers of the next lower class."