Rajdhani Express--Mumbai to Kota---to book ahead or not

I will be in Mumbai at the end of June and be travelling to Bundi sometime in early July. As I don't know exactly how long my stay in Mumbai will be and am hoping for maximum flexibility, I was wondering if it would be wise to wait and book my train travel then. I will need the overnight A/C (1st class?) ticket.Shimla said it would be the 2953 August Kranti Rajdhani Express. Do these tickets get booked up in advance? Is it wise to wait or not? Take my chances?

Generally speaking, you need not book ahead for a journey in July, as its the off-season; and you can do so after arriving at Mumbai.

However, I've been checking the general availability of berths over May and June on the Rajdhanis from Mumbai to Kota for all the classes and the message says "Not Available". I feel this may be so because the IR gives preference to passengers booking upto New Delhi, as this is a long distance superfast express and a prestegious one for them. Aparently, they do not issue an advance reservation form Mumbai to intermediate stations on the Rajdhanis.

If the above is true, then you can travel by the 2903 Golden Temple Mail, instead.

You could book the Rajdhani all the way to Delhi and just get off at Kota, though this would be expensive.

BUT.

Dont use the loo at 30 km an hour!!

Steven,

On further playing around with the IR website, I saw that availability was indicated for the Rajdhanis for Mumbai-Vadodara and Mumbai-Ratlam. This means that one can reserve for these sectors, which in turn means that there are certain quotas from Vadodara and Ratlam to New Delhi; and hence on can book upto these intermediate stations from Mumbai.

Aparently, there's no quota from Kota to Delhi on the Rajdhanis and hence one cannot book from Mumbai to Kota.

The quota details must be printed somewhere, if we could get the print out, it would make getting reservations so much easier.

Formerly, the zonal time tables provided details of quotas operated for each train for every class at all stations that had quotas. I do not know whether they still do.

By a trial and error method, one can find quotas for a few important trains at a few important stations, by keying in the details in the "Trains between important stations" tab on the IT website and checking availability 50 days ahead. Then check for the next 6 days, then next six. Now, 50-55 days ahead means the second week of June and generally the full availability is seen over the period. One can get an idea of the quota. This is not accurate, but gives a fair idea.