Dreams of Thought » misc

IRCTC disabled right click

Anirudh — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:32:50 +0000

Many readers of my post on booking tatkal tickets with Firefox’s autofill forms extension have reported that IRCTC has now disabled right clicks. Not only does this hamper saving the form, it is also very annoying. I’ve found a workaround for this. After you fill in the form do not directly go and right click to save the form as a profile. Instead paste this code into the Firefox address bar – javascript:void(document.oncontextmenu=null) . This will re-enable the disabled right click. Now proceed as before.

This code can be used on any site that disables right click

Hat tip to this post on “Re-Enable Right-Click When Web Pages Turn It Off“

PQWL status on Railway ticket

Anirudh — Wed, 19 May 2010 06:50:59 +0000

PQWL is one of the many Waiting List types that appear on reservation tickets. Practically speaking this is a Waiting List. Technically, there’s a difference between PQWL, CKWL, GNWL etc. The total seats available for reservation on a train are divided among different quotas. There’s the ladies quota, tatkal quota and general quota. Some trains also have what is called the Pooled Quota or PQ. When you book a ticket to a station for which tickets are issued from the pooled quota, then you get a pooled quota waiting list or PQWL if all the tickets available in the PQ quota have already been booked. This is similar to CKWL (Waiting list on the tatkal quota). The pooled quota is used for a bunch of stations who share a pool of tickets. These are relatively minor stations, at least as far as that particular train is concerned. For eg. if you were to book a ticket from Bangalore(SBC) to Rajamundry(RJY) on the Guwahati Express (2509), then you would get tickets assigned from the Pooled Quota. Waiting lists from this PQ quota appear as PQWL on the ticket.

CKWL status

Anirudh — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:21:19 +0000

I get a lot of queries regarding ckwl status. These involve questions like -
“I got a tatkal ticket of WL 17 in sleeper on train 2833. Today is 24th Feb 2010. and my train is on 26th Feb.?
Total tatkal seats is 229. Is it likely to be confirmed?”

It’s tough to answer such a question. There are different factors to keep in mind.

1. The route in which the train runs. Some routes, like Chennai – Bangalore route, are busy. Cancellations are probably low here. You are more likely to get a CKWL status if you book a train in a busy route.

2. The day for which the ticket is booked. Tatkal ticket bookings are high on Fridays and Sundays. If you look at tatkal bookings in a busy route like Bangalore <–> Ernakulam, you will find that booking is high on Fridays for Bangalore –> Ernakulam and high on Sundays for Ernakulam –> Bangalore.

3. Which train are you travelling on? If you’ve booked tatkal tickets for a train which is at a convenient time for most people (for eg. Island express at 9:45 pm is convenient for those going from Bangalore –> Ernakulam), then the likelihood of getting a CKWL status is higher compared to getting a CKWL status on a less conveniently timed train ( There’s a train at 5:15 train from Bangalore –> Ernakulam. Not convenient because most people can’t get out of office that early).

4. Occassionally the railways add extra coaches to a train when there’s a big waiting list. Chances are high that your CKWL status becomes confirmed in that case. I assume this is more likely to happen during the rush season (summer holidays?).

5. Some people cancel their tickets at the very last moment.

6. Some people forget to cancel their tickets

I have faced situations where a CKWL 11 did not get converted to a confirmed ticket. But I’ve also faced situations where my CKWL 30 ticket got confirmed. My advice to you is that unless you have a very high CKWL status, say CKWL 50, you ought to wait till the last moment. You won’t get much if you cancel a tatkal ticket anyway. It’s worth a shot.

Mind you, this advice is free and does not come with any guarantees. I’m not responsible if you wait for a ticket and it does not get confirmed. YMMV

Booking tatkal tickets on IRCTC the supercool way

Anirudh — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:12:22 +0000

This article is a short demo to using Firefox’s Autofill Forms extension to book tatkal tickets. First step is to go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4775 and install the extension. You’ll need to restart Firefox for the extension to take effect.

Now that it’s done, head to the IRCTC website and login. Now head to the Quick Book page. You can fill in the details.
If you do not know the train number, you can get it from the “Plan My Travel” page. Now that you’ve filled up all the details you want to, right click on one of the form textboxes.

Edit : IRCTC has now disabled right clicks. As a workaround you need to paste javascript:void(document.oncontextmenu=null) into your address bar to re-enable the right click. See my post on IRCTC’s disabled right click.

Click on the “Add complete form as profile” option.

A new window like this will now open up

You can close the window and reload the QuickBook page. Press the Alt+j key combination to autofill the form. You can reload the page as many times as you want and press Alt+j to autofill.

This post is dedicated to my good friend Dhanya.

Edit : OK, I’m giving into blackmail from someone crafty and cunning(not my words)

@gjoos : i want my name included in that blogpost if you want me to TRY booking tickets for you tomorrow !!!

So, Divya chechi.. this post is dedicated to you as well

Update : Wondering what CKWL means? Check out my blog post on CKWL status on Tatkal railway ticket.

CKWL on Tatkal railway ticket

Anirudh — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:15:21 +0000

So the other day I booked a tatkal ticket online from IRCTC. After the usual 500 errors and multiple tries I came to the “Congratulations!” page where they gave me the ticket details. And this is what I found in the ticket’s status “CKWL 23″. I wondered what the heck it was. Googling did not help. I shot off a mail to the IRCTC customer care and within half an hour I got their reply. Reproducing their reply below -

Dear Customer,

Kindly note that CK stands for Tatkal CKWL means Tatkal Wait list Ticket.

Thanks & Regards

So there it goes. Official reply from IRCTC. CKWL is the waiting list for the tatkal quota. It’s just like the “WL” you get on the normal ticket, except it’s on the tatkal quota. No idea what CK stands for though.

Although the reply wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, I was impressed that they got back to me so soon. It’s nice to see the Railways doing good stuff. There’s still room to improve though.

Have you had a similar experience with IRCTC? Frustrating one? Good one? The comment form is right below

Update : Found something in the IRCTC site in the ngpay FAQ. It says(in point 9)

Booking can be done against general (GN), ladies (LD) and tatkal (CK) quota berths/seats only.

. What this means is that GNWL is General Quota Waiting list, LDWL is Ladies Quota Waiting List and CKWL is Tatkal Quota Waiting list.

If you’re looking to improve the time it takes to book tatkal tickets, you can try the Autofill forms extension. Check out my blog post on how to use the Autofill forms addon.