Find a Seat in a Crowded Train with a Simple Click

In early 90s and before time, getting a train ticket was very tedious and time consuming job. Whenever we had to make a reservation, we either felt too lazy to stand in long queue for hours or simply shred some extra money from our pocket to make a reservation through an agent. Even till the night before the departure, one kept on wondering how to make further plans when it was very uncertain that one would be able to reserve a seat in a train, especially while travelling with the family where no compromises could be made.

But, with the age of internet, it changed. When the power of internet comes as handy as a Smartphone, with online website portals and applications, you can easily check the availability of seat in desired class of a coach in a train. Now you can plan your vacation as well as book a train as per your wish. Centre for Railway Information Systems designed a website portal as well as IRCTC official application. Below listed are the guidelines where you can check from website. You can also check the seat availability from the third party applications as well as websites.

Guideline for checking the availability of seat in a train on a website

·         You will need open a browser preferably Google chrome, Firefox, etc. and type the link on the address bar www.indianrail.gov.in/seat_avail.html

·         Then you will be directed to the main page for checking availability. Now following will be mentioned on the main page:

o   Train number

o   Journey date

o   Source station code

o   Class

o   Destination station code

o   Quota

·         All you need to do is find the appropriate number of the train in which you want to travel in. You can find the name and the train number by clicking at the Train between Stations and you can easily find station codes of the two stations online.

·         After finding the right train number, you fill out all the other essential details and then click on Get Availability, then you can check whether on that day seat is available or not

·         You can also check it on third party websites easily such as www.travelkhana.com. Websites such as travelkhana have collected database of approximately 90 days for the sole purpose of booking as well as for checking seat availability.

·         Sometimes you might find on official website shows results such as ‘due to overload on website’ then it is highly recommended that you check out either the link above or you can access the official application- Rail Cal: Seat Availability/PNR, IRCTC Connect  for this you must have a registered account or if not, you can register in the app itself) on your Smartphone/tablet or you can also use third party applications.

In this way, you can check railway availability or not from anywhere at any time. Indian Railways is updating its technology on regular basis and is leaning no stone unturned to make the train journey hassle free.