Team-BHP - Indian Railways Thread | Info, Queries & Reviews

Had a real tough time booking tatkal for Rajdhani just now with Google Chrome. Since Chrome is fast to load pages, me thought that booking should be relatively easy. But I was shocked to see frequent session timeouts (at least 10 times in 20 min) and yet tickets seems to be depleting fast! Even though Chrome loads pages faster, it seems there is some time-out issues with it. Luckily, the trusted old IE came to the rescue with few time-out errors. IE tried a bit harder and stayed on the page longer, though it might be a tad slower. I do not recommend Chrome for tatkal booking unless you know how to increase the session time-out settings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampere

Mobile version in the works.

IRCTC to launch mobile app to book train tickets : Business News - India Today

Well the irctc mobile site is indeed up; and ??running?? The only limitation I see at the moment is that, it has only one payment option - that is through Citi- which unfortunately seems to have some issue as of now.
I gave a try for booking tatkal yesterday morning through my iphone, and quite surprisingly I "sailed through" the booking process 3 times in a row except for last step. "3 times" and every time it failed at the last step- i.e., payment done from citi side, but it didnt come back properly to irctc site. By that time it was 8:30 and my 1st preferred train was in W/L. Hence I tried through the regular site (through mobile itself) and with little more pain though, it did went through correctly using icici payment option for my 2nd preferred train. Lesson: payment thru citi thru mobile site is having some problem currently.
Observations:
+++ : mobile site is in indeed fast, even during 8 to 830 am time frame. The session seems to remain active a bit more longer than it used to do while in regular site. Having a master list of passengers helps a lot during regular booking since we just need to tick mark the passengers to add it to the list, and no need to type. yes, we need to give the id card no if not already present.
- - - : Editing the date of travel is clumsy and needs improvement; rest of the fields are are fine. The results show only the particular date availability that you requested for; doesnt give the next 5 days availability, nor it gives the availability in the next class of travel (like it displays 3AC as well as Sleeper availablity side by side, even if request is for 3AC)
Overall, seems to be good help in tatkal bookings, once payment gateway is up and RUNNING for other banks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thoma (Post 2643186)

Very true. SSL coonection timeout errors are more in chrome than IE during tatkal booking.
Better to use IE.

-Ravi

ID proof to be a must for AC rail travel from February - The Times of India

According to the article "all" passengers need to carry "original" id cards !

Now wondering if its applicable to e-tickets also. In e-tickets, we carry id card for one passenger listed in the ticket. Will we be required to carry the id card for all passengers also ?

What happens in case of children and old parents, who dont have id cards.

Need your inputs on the same please:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lambuhere1 (Post 2651789)

I don't think it would be done that way. Only one would need to carry the ID proof even if you had booked the ticket on booking counter. Similar to e-ticket. At the moment the black marketing is possible because if you have booked the ticket on the counter, you don't have to show any proof.

Another link from times explaining it further. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/11542213.cms

Quote:

Originally Posted by nitin.rai (Post 2592228)

Book using Yatra.com and it works almost all the times, even for tatkal. Irctc has become real lousy.

How much do you have to pay additionally for booking through Yatra.com? Also, I have heard that the payment gateways ( Credit Cards / Online Banking) charge 1.8% instead of Rs. 10/11 that they charge on IRCTC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shipnil (Post 2651811)

Actually I book train ticket online every week for my father (who shuttles between Pune and Mumbai)

My preference is IRCTC but these are the usual troubles

Gets stuck at login page
Gets stuck at any page
Server errors
Often the verification text does not appear
Hangs during payment (I use netbanking)
Often, amounts get charged (I receive sms from the bank) but because of data errors, the page hangs and the tickets are not issued (I usually get a refund a few days later)
overall the process takes too long and requires immense patience

I also book from Makemytrip.com and that has none of these troubles.

However, a single Deccan Queen ticket on IRCTC (senior citizen) costs 61+10 rupees transaction fee (IIRC) and on make my trip, there is an additional Rs. 10/- per ticket involved making the Deccan Queen ticket about Rs. 81/-

I used to use Ubuntu for booking rail tickets as it was fast, but once many more people got the wiff of 'tatkal' and also because of travel agents, logging on to the site became increasingly difficult. I have a feeling some guys are doing a 'back door' entry and also the railway guys are in cahoots with them. Though agents can't log on by 8 am it is still difficult. Either something is fishy or it's a fraction of the 1.2 billion population jamming the servers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lambuhere1

According to the article "all" passengers need to carry "original" id cards !
Now wondering if its applicable to e-tickets also. In e-tickets, we carry id card for one passenger listed in the ticket. Will we be required to carry the id card for all passengers also ? What happens in case of children and old parents, who dont have id cards.

Well, to clarify :

1) Only one of the passengers in the group needs to have an ID for e-ticket. But a change here is that the ID number has to be mentioned while booking e-ticket and only that particular ID would be accepted.

2) For counter tickets also, when they say "all" have to have ID, it does not mean "all the people in a group" - it is enough for 1 person in the group to have an ID on him/her. They mean "all" as in all passengers booking individually (separate tickets).