[ramzsys]

Yesterday morning i couldn't book any tatkal ticket. Payment gateway not available. Dont know whose fault, the indian bank or IRCTC.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Now, carrying a screenshot of the e-ticket on the mobile / laptop /palmtop along with proof of ID is sufficient.

Good paper saving move.

What happens if my phone runs out of battery after getting on the train??

The Jan Shatabdis I frequent does not have charging points. At least, not in non-a/c coaches.

[supremeBaleno]

^^^ Why do they even need a paper ticket or snapshot of ticket on phone for e-tickets ? Why should just the original ID not be enough ? You make a note of your coach/berth and board the train, flash the ID and are done. That way no paper printing or saving on phone.

Yesterday morning I logged in at 8AM from office to get Tatkal for a friend (Chennai - Calicut). I could login at 8AM, but nothing much happened till 8:28AM - kept getting a "Could not retrieve information" error message on the PlanMyTravel link. Finally got the ticket at 8:30AM, which was surprising to me because if it was for Tvm Mail, the tickets usually get over by 8:08AM or so.

Also not sure I understood why they disabled QuickBook during 8-9AM ? Since anyone can use QB, isn't the playing-field level ? What is the use in disabling it and making people go through umpteen steps during a period of the day when it is toughest to move from page to page ?

[ravib]

Little . I took an e-ticket printout yesterday to give it to my father ( he doesn't have a hi-fi phone to show VRM ticket with screenshot).

Surprised to see that IRCTC had changed the printing format and now one can see the complete mailing address of the person who booked the ticket as per his/her profile stored in IRCTC database. Earlier only mobile number was shown, but now the entire address is printed along with mobile number.

IMO, this will be a serious privacy issue, because in case if someone leaves the e-ticket without shredding it, any one can misuse the information.

It has Name, complete mailing address, age details etc in the e-ticket which is almost sufficient for confirming identity in some of tele-conversations with other service providers like mobile phone operators, insurance companies, banks (?), etc...

-Ravi

[grazd]

Is anyone able to book tatkal thru IRCTC (especially between 8am -9am)?
I saw an advert in the paper today issued by Indian Rail about how they have taken strong steps and upgraded their systems.
However, nothing seems to have changed in reality. I tried booking in Tatkal today morning on a reasonable fast 512Kbps connection,.. simply no dice.. the IRCTC site did not load AT ALL till 1030 am.. by which time naturally all tickets had long gone..

I used to consider myself an expert at this game, I was using custom java script and firefox extensions in the good ol' days when quick book was allowed. However, now I am at a complete loss to manage this. Anyone has any ideas to share on how to get tatkal to work...?

[skanchan95]

IRCTC still has some niggling issues. While trying to book tickets, twice payment was debited from my account, yet no PNR was generated and the tickets weren't booked. The payment was refunded both times but the entire purpose of booking a Tatkal ticket was lost. The travel agents create multiple fake ids & book tickets thereby overloading the server.

For tatkal bookings, its better to catch hold of some travel agent as they are experts at tatkal ticket bookings and they always are able to exploit the loopholes and get those tickets( both through IRCTC.in as well the regular counter bookings).

[faustus77]

hi everybody
what i have been gleaning from the newspapers in the last few days that tatkal facility is not available to agents between 8am and 9am
whether the agents have found a way around this i have no idea.
incidentally 22nd bombay delhi rajdhani had major problems as one train can have 999 etickets.Unfortunately due to heavy rush the demand was above 1000 and the system crashed
rgds

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by grazd

Is anyone able to book tatkal thru IRCTC (especially between 8am -9am)?

If you tried yesterday, then the demand would have been high due to rush for Diwali. I did try tatkal a week ago to take ticket for 17-Oct (last minute holiday announced by office due to TN local-body elections) and was not very confident of getting ticket. But to my surprise, I got through on the 1st attempt itself and had a ticket by 8:07AM or so. This was on the Asianet cable net connection at my in-laws place, which I was using for the 1st time. Don't know if better bandwidth was the reason or general lack of interest in tatkal ticket for a Monday.

[goandude]

found an interesting image which tells you exactly where your berth on all classes of broad gauge trains are located.

[ThePunter]

Today my transaction freezed in between (to be precise- at the page where it says "redirecting to irctc" ) after payment confirmation number appeared on screen. I decided to refresh the screen though I believed till now that it will give an error. And to my surprise the remaining part went through easily and irctc page appeared with seat confirmation details. I just noted down the ref no, before doing it, just to be safe.
Well I never tried it earlier, but there was hardly ever a desparate situation like "this" before too. Today i was booking thru my iphone and so going thru multiple pages definitely a pain when compared to a PC.
Anybody had been lucky like this, here?

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

ThePunter - that is real news. Hitting refresh means you say byebye to the service charges - the booking amount will be reunded, but not the service charges. ;-(

BTW, now, it is not necessary to take print out of the ticket. Tried this the otherday on the TVC - KTM - CLT Jan Shatabdi. I was booking the ticket through by phone from my room @ TVC, and there was no access to a printer anyway. Just decided to test the new system of showing the screenshot of the ticket print page. The screen shot is very hazy at bigger sizes, so had taken 3-4 shots after zooming each part of the ticket separately.

Now, will try the same on CLT - KTM - TVC janshatabdi in a couple of days. THis time, I have saved the ticket as a pdf file on the PC, and will show the pdf to the TTE. (The site says a screen shot on your mobile / laptop will do).

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by ThePunter

Today my transaction freezed in between (to be precise- at the page where it says "redirecting to irctc" ) after payment confirmation number appeared on screen. I decided to refresh the screen though I believed till now that it will give an error. And to my surprise the remaining part went through easily and irctc page appeared with seat confirmation details. Anybody had been lucky like this, here?

Yes, it works and I have mentioned it earlier on this thread. Ofcourse, use it only as a last option when the return to irctc page from banking-gateway seems stuck for eternity.

@BSD, not sure why you say it is bye-bye to service charges. If a refresh does not get you back to IRCTC, then the whole amount is refunded. If it does get you back to IRCTC, there is no point of any refund because your ticket is booked.

[Renjith Rajan]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

ThePunter - that is real news. Hitting refresh means you say byebye to the service charges - the booking amount will be reunded, but not the service charges. ;-(

I didnt understand this part. Can you explain? I am curious because I have done the refreshing trick many times and never really checked whether I got the service charge back when this failed.

What I do is when IRCTC website shows "Service Unavailable" or similar error after payment, I just click back button and bank site will again redirect back to IRCTC. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it wont, but worth trying .

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Last time I hit refresh on this page (several months back), (a) money was deducted from my a/c (b) ticket was not booked (c) I got a refund, less the bank's service charges (d) Bank charged me for the refund.

Never dared to hit the refresh at any stage of irctc booking so far.

[supremeBaleno]

Oh, you meant bank service charges. I don't pay that anyway because FedBank does not charge for this. Earlier I used my ABN-AMRO a/c which was free, but once they started charging for this, I moved to Fed.