Online ticketing facility offered by IRCTC has change the scenario of railway ticketing and brought about path breaking revolution in booking tickets.  It pioneered online Railway Ticket Reservation not only through its website but also from mobile phones via GPRS or SMS. Apart from booking the tickets online one can also perform ticket cancellations or modifications as per one requirement over the internet.  Besides E-tickets, IRCTC also extend the facility of I-tickets which are similar to regular tickets but does not require one to visit the computerized reservation counter as these tickets are booked online and delivered at home by post.

IRCTC provides the facility of booking the season tickets online for the convenience of commuters using the Mumbai’s suburban railway.  Additionally, IRCTC has also launched a loyalty program popularized as “Shubh Yatra” meant for frequent travellers. This program allows the passengers to avail of discounts on all tickets reserved throughout the year by making payment of upfront annual fee.

IRCTC is responsible for managing the catering services on trains as well as railway stations across India. Indian Railways equips their trains with their pantry car or it arranges for meals on railways stations enroute.  It basically depends on the average passenger load factor and distance covered by the train.

IRCTC is also actively engaged in providing tourism facilities for the tourists. It organizes budget and deluxe package tours for foreign as well as domestic tourists.  One of the widely popular tourism packages designed for budget tourists that cover important tourist destination throughout the country is Bharat Darshan.  Apart from that there are various luxury tourism packages available, that involve special luxury trains such as Palace on Wheels, Royal Orient Express, etc.

One can easily get the Indian Railways Reservation status of the ticket from the details provided in the ticket. It is clearly indicated and printed on the ticket. In case of the confirmed ticket, the coach and berth numbers are mentioned on the ticket in all classes except first class and AC first class. In these classes, the word “Confirmed” is printed alongside the class of travel.

If the ticket status is showing as RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation) or as a Waitlisted status, then it is printed on the ticket.  One can reserve the tickets up to 60 days in advance excluding the journey date at the originating station of train.  In case of the intermediate stations where the trains disembark the next day, reservation can be done up to 61 days in advance.   However, the no of days of booking the tickets in advance is less in intercity day express trains.

One can board the train with Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) ticket and it means that initially one will be offered a sitting accommodation and later on a berth is allotted if any passenger does not turn up for travel.

In case of passenger who gets the Waitlisted ticket, one needs to check the status of ticket prior to board the train.  If the status of the Waitlisted ticket is not confirmed or upgraded to RAC, then it is advised that passenger should not board the reserved coaches.  One may be fined and detrained if found to be in reserved coaches with waitlisted tickets.

One may upgrade the tickets from the lower class to higher class for the same train and date; however it is subjected to the availability of accommodation in higher class.  This upgrading of class of accommodation can be done only after the collection of fresh reservation charges and the difference of the fares between the two classes.  It may also be done during the course of journey by contacting the Travelling Ticket Examiner.

The Southern Railway (SR) incorporates far away and long distance regions like Mangalore on the western coast, Kanniyakumari in the south to Gudur – North East and Renigunta – North West.

On 14th April 1951, the Southern Railway of India became the first Railway Zone to be inaugurated in independent India. It was created after amalgamating the South Indian Railway, the Madras, Southern Mahratta Railway and the Mysore state railway. It was originally created during the British colonial rule in 1853 and registered in 1859 when its offices were headquatered at Tiruchirapalli (Trichy).

There are six Divisional headquarters of Southern Railway at Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Salem, Palakkad, and Thiruvananthapuram.  Approximately over 500 million passengers travel every year on the network of Southern Railways.  This zone of the Indian Railways derives its revenue from the passengers instead of freight and that makes it stand apart from other railway zones of India.

A huge section of this railway zone is consisted of meter gauge lines in comparison to majority of other Indian Railways zones who have broad gauge lines. The major focus at present is directed at converting all lines to broad gauge, improving the facilities at stations, covering the platform, installing better catering stalls and incorporating an automated signaling system to prevent accidents.

As per the statistics on Chennai Central station, it serves nearly one million passengers daily. Six stations of the Southern Railway are being scheduled for upgrading including Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. In fact, Chennai Central and Trivandrum Central railway stations are being transformed to world class standards.

Rajdhani Express came into existence in 1969 for offering rapid connections (that may reach up to the speed of 140 km/h) from different railway stations in New Delhi to the various capital cities of different states of India. These trains boast of superior priorities on the Indian railway network and are completely air-conditioned.

Rajdhani Express provides the range of amenities to the passengers including complimentary meals during the travel.  Various meals include the Lunch, high tea, dinner; morning tea and breakfast are served that depends on the timings of the train and duration of the travel.

Majority of these trains provide three different classes of accommodation including First Class AC ( 2 or 4 berth lockable bedrooms), Second Class AC 2-tier (open system berths with curtains for privacy), Second Class AC 3-tier (bays of 6 berths + 2 berths on the side without privacy curtains).

Presently there are 18 pairs of Rajdhani Express trains operating in India that links New Delhi to Mumbai (2), Kolkata (3), Chennai, Guwahati/Dibrugarh, Jammu, Patna, Ahmedabad, Secunderabad Railway Station, Bangalore, Jabalpur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Rajdhani trains are unique in a way that they have smaller number stops than other express trains and usually they are halted at major cities and business centers of states like Allahabad, Bhopal, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jaipur etc.

One of the major challenges faced by Rajdhani is that of losing their market to cheap airlines as the fares of Rajdhani Express is higher than some low cost airlines and also resurrection of road transport is also giving competition to the market share of Rajdhani Express.

Some of the famous Rajdhani Express trains include Ahmedabad Swarna Jayanti Rajdhani, Chennai Rajdhani, Mumbai Rajdhani,August Kranti Rajdhani, Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani, Howrah Rajdhani, etc

PNR number acts as the primary reference basically and assists in finding and updating the status for reservation and confirmation of ticket. It serves as the database for Railway Reservation system. One can easily find out the confirmation status by mobile and landline phone.

PNR represents the Passenger Current Status and online PNR Status Enquiry is available only between 0500 hrs to 2300 hrs IST.  In order to offer faster service now onwards, Indian Railways has decided that PNR Status will be available only for those PNR’s for which date of journey lies within 10 days (inclusive of current day).  Therefore, one needs to provide the details of journey date along with the PNR number for getting the current status.

Indian Railways has offered the facility of providing the Train PNR Status on the mobile phones. This has led to great relief and comfort for the passengers.  To get the PNR Status over the mobile phone, one need to type in 10 digit PNR number printed on the ticket and sends it via SMS to 9773300000.

Indian Railways has collaborated with Google to offer this facility. By merely messaging the PNR number through cell phone one gets the ticket’s current status in addition to all other journey related details. While sending the SMS to the number 9773300000, one should not prefix 0 or +91. Best part of this service is that one is required to pay the price of standard SMS only and no premium charge is charged to the passengers.

The Indian Railways Website

Most of us in India, by now must have travelled by Indian railways at some point of time and most of them have come out of the journey with good memories. Traveling by using the Indian railways has its own charm and quiet a lot of people including the foreigners enjoy that and hence you will see lot of them still flocking back to the Great Indian Railways. And now with upgraded services like 24 hour customer call number, online reservations and booking there is nothing that railways needs to look back too, it is a winner all the way.

Online Sites

Indian railways is owned by the Ministry of railways, a few years ago when technology was knocking at our doors, Indian railways also got up and got their act right. Close to a decade ago, Indian railways launched the site www.indianrail.gov.in. This site provided a comprehensive list of all the things that we wanted to know while we travelled. This site was like the Bible of Indian Railways, for any details pertaining to the railways you could easily go and check the details. Once this site was stabilized and popular, the developed a site which was meant only for booking tickets and promoting tourism. The site was www.irctc.co.in. India’s more than half the travel plan happens on this site. Both the sites have gained immense popularity and terrific usage.

There are lot of facilities that is provided by the irctc site and few of them that can be mentioned are checking of trains, booking of tickets, cancellation of tickets, monthly season pass and other things. One of the most necessary things to be done before you plan a journey is check on the train and the ticket availability. Both of these can be done on the IRCTC.co.in. For logging in to irctc, all you need is a username and password; this is a onetime activity and is recommended for people who travel a lot. Once the login is done, if you are interested in knowing the train timings, you need to click on plan my travel. On clicking on plan my travel, the site will then further display you details like the stations where the travel Is expected to take place, so mention the to and from station codes. Specify the date, type of ticket and the quota that you are planning to travel on. As soon as are through with typing in the details, click on go and you will see a list of trains appearing for that destination.

To get information on the travel time for each of the time, click on the name of the train itself – this will provide you with the list of stations and what time is the departure and the arrival of the train. A quick detail of departure and arrival will be given on the screen itself. However; if you need the complete detail, click on the train name. Once that is decided, you can actually go ahead and book the tickets on the same site.

Getting details of train timings on IRCTC is also an easy task, and all that is required is navigation skills.

A steam locomotive is nothing but an engine which is propelled by steam power, when Indian railways started off most of the trains ran on steam engine. It is later in the last century that we transitioned to better means of engines. However we still have a few trains running on Steam power and they are:-

Fairy Queen: The fairy train is a luxury train and runs on steam power. The train is one of the few which runs on the basis of other luxury trains; it starts only in the month of October and runs till April only. It covers Delhi, Alwar and the national sanctuary Sariska. The duration is short and the whole journey finishes off in a day and half. The train runs only within the stipulated month and runs only on second and fourth Saturday of every month.

Nilgiris Mountain Railways: A part of the Mountain railways Zone in India, the most of the trains that ply on these Nilgiris hills run on steam engine. There were plans of modernization in this route and it was supposed to convert into electric trains but however; UNESCO took this as a heritage site and since then there have been only Steam engine travels for this part of railways. The route covers the distance of between Mettupalayam and Ooty. Quiet a lot of Indian movies have been shot on this route, it is a very picturesque route and one of the best tourist spots in Southern India for the summers.

Darjeeling Himalayan Railways: This route is also a part of the Mountains railway zone and most of the trains that run on these routes are also using steam engines. Steam Engines add to the tourist attraction and most of the routes are meant for tourist promotion. In this route one can actually view the Kanchenjunga peak, the tallest peak in the Himalayan range in India. The trains plying on these routes are called as special Tourism trains as one of the tasks of these trains are to promote tourism.

The major task of all the tourist steam engine trains is to promote tourism and attract more people. The ticket booking of these trains are done using the normal IRCTC site and needs to booked in advance to avoid the rush of tourists.

One of the surveys conducted recently states that the maximum travel plans that happen in India are generally done through the Indian railways. Travelling by Indian railways has relatively become an easier job with the advent in the technology; you can sit in the luxuries of your house and gather all the information that is required for travelling.

Fares

Traveling by Indian railways is considered the best because it provides us the cheapest form of transport. Look at the Mumbai Suburban trains itself, a journey which travelled by roadways could cost us way beyond 100 rupees will cost only 4 on the local trains; one can’t get anything cheaper than this. But still the railways are continuously striving to keep the cost reduced while the travelling.

The burden on people is distributed as quite a bit of the revenue for Indian railways comes through freight charges also. Over the years, the inflation has sky rocketed but the cost of the traveling by Indian railways has not undergone any big change.

In fact the Ministry of railways has come up with a lot of schemes like the Duronto’s and Garib Raths. The Duronto has made life easier for people who wish to travel between two important stations, these are nonstop trains and cost almost as that of a normal train. Secondly the Garib Raths, these are completely air conditioned trains that cost just half of the cost of a normal 3^rd tier AC. Also the list of people those are eligible for discounts are on the rise completely.

For example, a senior citizen, a doctor, defense personnel, sports personnel, youth discounts, an unemployed person travelling for interview etc. There are concessions on fares for lot of things. With all these facilities and with the upgrade in the services, the other modes of transport are seriously facing a big time competition with the Indian railways.

Now that Indian railways have opened to portals to private operators like Makemytrip and cleartrip site, there are discounts available on that site too. The cost can reduce here in some cases, making the tickets cheaper than ever.

In railways the cheapest form of tickets comes in the form of normal chair class tickets. The normal 3 tier sleepers are costlier than the chair class and then the 3^rd Ac, 2^nd Ac and 1^st AC in that order. Not many trains have 1^st AC and 2^nd AC. And now with the introduction of technology in railways checking of the fares at the luxuries of our house, this has become more comfortable. Travelling by Indian railways is very charming experience and with the fares not being hit by inflation it all the more has become alluring to travel in Indian railways.

The Railways have grown a lot in the past few years, and they have actually improved the facilities in the train. New trains with better features are always introduced, the competition from other modes of transport have also started to bite them. So in order to keep up with the competition, the railways have started increasing their standards.

A few years ago, travelling using Indian railways was a cumbersome task, to know anything about the trains plying on different station one would need to visit the railway station, check at the reservation counter about the various options and then come back, discuss with the family look at the holiday options and then plan a travel to the desired designation.

However; that wasn’t enough to book the tickets you would have to stand in lines and lines of queue and then get the details. But thankfully in the past two decades or so after the advent of technology into every stream, railways were also not left behind and they started providing information on the internet, thereby easing the task of relatively huge number of travelers across the country.

Anyways talking about travelling in railways one always needs to be updated about the trains which go to the destination where they are likely to go. These details can be found on the website of Indian railways namely www.indianrail.gov.in and www.irctc.co.in. The first site will give you details about everything that you want to about trains and the second site is instrumental in figuring out the bookings to be done for the railways.

For finding trains between two trains all you need to do is log on to the first site, select the link trains between two trains, write the station code for both the destination and there it is the page displayed will give you details of all the trains plying between both the stations. Similarly this can be done for fares too, all the details that you need is to click on fare enquiry. Specify the date, specify the age, specify the date you are planning to travel, and the details of the train along with the station names. Once you click on go, you will get the fare details for the necessary trains.

All the necessary details that you require for planning a journey, you can find it on the Indian railway site. The advantage of this is you can plan in journey well in advance and look at various options too. In fact if you are travelling in one single Zone as defined by the railways then this information can be gathered in the Zone specific Railways site. This will give you details of the local passenger trains plying on a shorter route, but however for booking a ticket for this you will need to access the irctc site.

The roadways in this case can be really an expensive affair. But if you are visiting Mumbai for the first time and planning to take the locals then beware there are chances that you will get confused with the abbreviations used. The best way to get around knowing the place is get a Mumbai Local Train Map.

A Mumbai local train map can really help a commoner in understanding the necessary details. Lets learn to decipher, before starting let us know that Mumbai Suburban railways has 3 railway networks the first being the western railways which caters all the way from Churchgate to Dahanu , the second being the Central railway this caters all the way from Mumbai CST to Kasara on the north Side and Karjat on the southern side. The third network is the harbor line and it connects Mumbai CST to Panvel; this covers the stations in New Bombay too.

If you look at the map you will see the western railways which start from Churchgate all the way up to Dahanu Road, from here the trains goes into the interiors of Gujarat and further north. It also gives the time taken to each station from Churchgate. The central railway map shows the details from Mumbai CST to Thane and it diverges at Thane. At Thane the fast trains skips the next two stations and reaches Diva, while a slow train touches Mumbra and Kalwa. Later at Kalyan it again splits and one side caters to the North from where the journeys to the northern side of the country can be taken and the other side caters to the South from where one can go to Pune and further Deep South.

The harbor line has the first two stations common with the central line namely the Masjid and Sandhurst road and again later, Kurla also being a station common to both Central and Harbour line. The Harbour line then extends up to Panvel; from here people travelling south can take up the Konkan railway.

A route for Harbour line also starts from Andheri in the western line; they take the same route till Mahim and splits later. From Mahim to KingsCircle to Wadala, and then it is the same journey as that of a normal harbor line train. The common stations for Western and central lines are Dadar, Parel and Matunga. Once you are clear with these details along with the abbreviations used in the local trains it becomes an easy task to travel in the Mumbai Suburban railways.

All you need to do is travel in this network for a couple of days and you are done with understanding the ways.