How to book your Indian train ticket?

by Arjun Maheshwari

A train trip in India should definitely be in your bucket list if you are coming to this beautiful country. An overnight journey can take you a 1000 kms while you sleep in your hanging bed, a day journey on the other hand lets you see different landscapes.

Check out some ideas for train travel in our post here.

It is however an overwhelming task to find a place and book your ticket on Indian railways. There are a lot of trains in India but there are even more people and everyone hopes to get their confirmed seats. So, this might be the only thing where Indians plan in advance. We advise you to do the same.

This post guides you on when, where and how to book your train ticket.

When

Bookings open 60 days before the travel date for most of the trains (30 days for some short distance trains) at 8 AM IST. Most of the seats are taken in the next few minutes.

If you want to be sure to have your place, this is the time to book.

As a foreign tourist, you also have an option to avoid the rush and book your ticket up to 365 days in advance as mentioned here. For this, you have to select the “foreign tourist option” while booking (see details below).

Where

https://www.irctc.co.in – IRCTC is the official booking website of the Indian railways. We suggest you to avoid travel agents.

Create your account beforehand as it might take some time. You can find the official procedure here.

For “foreign tourist booking” with a possibility to book 365 days in advance, go to the menu option “Trains” > “Foreign Tourist Booking”.

How

Once you have your account ready, login to the website and follow the official user guide that shows the step-by-step process here.

Few tips :

  • Station names: Departure and arrival stations are code named and their might be multiple train stations in a city. For example, New Delhi (code = NDLS), and Old Delhi (DLI) are two of the many stations in Delhi. Do a quick Google to find the train station in your city of travel.
  • Travel classes: There are several classes and kinds of seats available and the prices change according to your choice:
    • 2S: Non air-conditioned seat
    • SL: Non air-conditioned sleeping berth
    • CC: Air-conditioned seat (suggested for day travel)
    • EC: Air-conditioned “luxury” seat
    • 3AC: Air-conditioned sleeping berth in a 8 people shared configuration
    • 2AC: Air-conditioned sleeping couch in a 6 people shared configuration (suggested for overnight travel)
    • 1AC: Air-conditioned sleeping berth in a 4 people closed cabin
  • Availability: Once you have selected the travel class, seat availability is shown in green as “AVAILABLE no. of seats”. Avoid booking in the waiting list (shown in red “WL”). “WL” means that there is no seat available. These seats might get confirmed eventually if other passengers cancel their tickets.
  • Category (quota): If you book without the “foreign tourist option”, you have the possibility to find available seats in different categories:
    • General: default option open for everyone
    • Ladies: seats reserved for women
    • Lower berths/Sr. citizen: seats reserved for senior citizens (men above 65, women above 45)
    • Tatkal/Premium tatkal: last minute seats. They can be booked only a day before train departure. Booking opens at 10 AM IST for air-conditioned tickets and 11 AM IST for non air-conditioned tickets.

Hope this post provides you some clarity for your next train trip while you are in India. If you prefer, we can also help you plan and book your journey so that you can enjoy your travel at its best. You may contact us here.