[praveen_v]

Originally Posted by swageo

I
I have booked 3rd AC for two elderly ladies of age 72 and 76. There were 90 seats available. I opted lower berth, and got two upper birth . What do you folks call this ?. Then I cancelled it, and went to counter. This time I got two lower berths.

I agree with that too. when i was booking for my family, I gave the preference for my parents as lower births, and upper birth for me. But it strangely alloted middle birth to me and upper birth to my parents . This has happened three times.

I have a feeling that they dont allot much lower births throught IRCTC. they use it for filling up all the upper & side upper births. Though it is a great facility, issues like these needs to be sorted out.

[mobike008]

It is common to see the communication failure message but, then if you try a couple of times, you will get success. I generally opt for e-tickets that i can take a print-out and i am ready to go.

Overall, it has been a satisfactory experience, considering its a government run website.

[jvsatish]

I have been using irctc for quite some time now and it works fine, most of the time, but has anyone tried booking Tatkal tickets thru irctc??? trust me, its sucks big time... the day you need to book tickets through tatkal - 5 days ahead there is communication failure from 5 am - thats when the booking starts if I'm not mistaken until 9 am or so, you just cant do anything on the site. And when you can access the site the tatkal quota is already full!!! I can't figure out the mystery behind this and this has happened to me many times, not just once...

[F50]

Originally Posted by swageo

I have booked 3rd AC for two elderly ladies of age 72 and 76. There were 90 seats available. I opted lower berth, and got two upper birth . What do you folks call this ?. Then I cancelled it, and went to counter. This time I got two lower berths.

Did you select the lower berth option? And did you click on Senior Citizen option?
I guess if you select senior citizen option it automatically gives you lower berth. Not sure though.

[swageo]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Did you select the option where the ticket doesnt get booked if your preference is not alloted to you? This should have worked since there were so many seat available

Yes, thats another joke. Tried all combinations of (birth-preference with/without this option).. And finally tried without selecting.

Lot of seats are reserved/blocked for "Emergency Quota", which historically are for private secretary of local politicians. They sell it on peak seasons. Goto 2nd AC, you see lot of Railway Employees "happily" travelling without any tickets. People like us who paid the money must on upper birth

[Su-47]

Originally Posted by akshat

Due to increasing load on the site the IRCTC introduced the new site a few months ago, but i feel the situation has worsened since then.

I whole-heartedly agree with the above statement. Somehere, I heard that IRCTC has allowed agents to book tickets through IRCTC. If that is true, the agents might be contributing to the site load significantly.

[lambuhere1]

Tried Tatkal few times. Worked wonders for me. You need to be ON TIME according to the website time to enter the details and be ready with your I card details also.

Lower seats are possible to get if you tell it that do not book if My choice of seats are not available. Got the same few times.

[alabjarus]

I have been a regular user of IRCTC and find their service extremely good. In the last 2+ years of my usage there has been only one instance of communication failure. Infact this happened post effecting payment.

I dropped an email to IRCTC citing the incident and got an email back that the system would by itself credit back the payment as the ticket was not booked. True to the mail, I had the payment credited back in 3 days.

Quite a hazzle free experience as compared to the traditional ticket booking.

OT: Do you know that you don't need to wait in queue to get platform ticket. You can do this via SMS. There is a kiosk in Bangalore Central station (it should be there in other stations too) which has a number displayed for various mobile co's. Send an SMS to that no. and you get an SMS back with a code. Punch the code into the kiosk and you get a platform ticket print out. You will be charged in your next mobile bill.

Neat, I must say.

[Torqy]

I do get Communication Failure...and that is the only problem. I really appreciate the railways for coming up with the system.

They've been ALWAYS prompt with sending tickets / reverting payments for "failed bookings". I've no complaints except for the network speed.

-- Torqy

[2theMax]

Works like a charm for me (I do book early),and getting lower berths wasn't a problem for me ever as long as i check the option mentioned by technocrat. I always opt for e-ticket with my DL as proof.

Would certainly commend the effort put in by railways in this aspect.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

@androdev - the site runs on Microsoft Windows server 2003.

I have tried only twice for upwards of two hours each on each occassion. Gave up. Went to the counter got the ticket, and reached back in 45 minutes.

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by jvsatish

...the day you need to book tickets through tatkal - 5 days ahead there is communication failure from 5 am - thats when the booking starts if I'm not mistaken until 9 am or so, you just cant do anything on the site. ...

This is obviously because there are a whole lot of people booking online using tatkal option during that same time frame (online queues ).....and the system has not been designed to handle such heavy usage.

[Ajaybiz]

Tried n tested fix for "Communication error" just log off and log in again and proceed with bookings . Actually it throws the error for that perticular session so disconnecting the session is quick fix.

[menonrajesh]

I used the service of IRCTC on the very first day they launched it. I will have to say I was a bit apprehensive about the creditibility of service, esp. on the payment mechanism. But to my surprise it went well and I received my tickets couriered with in 8 hrs of booking!! I was like !!

Tried n tested fix for "Communication error" just log off and log in again and proceed with bookings

Agree with @Ajaybiz. Logoff off and login is the best possible way out, what I have found so far. Otherthan its 'communication error' feature, I am finding the service very good and the payment gateway is very reliable. However I have not tried booking Tatkal tickets in this.

BTW, has someone got "RLWL" (Remote Location Wait List) against your booking?
I have,many a times. the problem here is that unlike the normal WL,chances of getting confirmed tickets against your RLWL is very very less. I never used to get it in the early days, but of late thrice I have got RLWL status. This happens when I try to book the tickets from my hometown in Kerala, which is not yet computerised:( ,using IRCTC site. Someone told me that not having the source station computerised could be the reason. Any idea about it?

[ramki067]

I think its all the same for some Govt. maintained websites. Just logged in to Welcome to Bangalore Telecom District website for paying landline bills online.The website was giving an error "DNS Error - Server cannot be found". Sent a mail to them,still no reply!