Dreams of Thought

Are dreams thoughts… or are thoughts dreams..

RSS Feed

Tag Archives: irctc

Differences between IRCTC and Indian Railway’s new ticketing service

0 Comments

I had previously mentioned that Indian Railways plans to introduce a new e-ticketing service like IRCTC. Here are some of the differences noted between the two services -

  1. IRCTC is a separate corporation. Its services will likely continue.
  2. IRCTC has separate logins for agents and passengers. The new service will be only for passengers
  3. A maximum of 10 tickets can be booked per month in IRCTC. Initially at least, this limit will be 8 in the new service.
  4. The new service will be hosted out of www.indianrailways.gov.in . The IRCTC website will continue to be at irctc.co.in
  5. Users will have to create fresh login for the new service

More updates as I get more news. Stay tuned :)

Filed under misc
Jul 5, 2011

Indian Railways to bring out new e-ticketing service like IRCTC

0 Comments

Indian Railways is going to bring out a new e-ticketing service like the IRCTC, says Economic Times. The new service is meant only for users and not for agents. IRCTC allows both agents and passengers to book tickets from its site. “irctc login” was the most searched term on Google India in the year 2010. The site is often overloaded and unusable. This is particularly so at 8 a.m. on Fridays and Wednesdays. The huge traffic on the site results in a very slow experience while booking. The payment and booking often fails.

One hopes that the new website would go on to be much better than the IRCTC. Of primary importance would be scalability – it should handle heavy load from it’s users and still provide a reasonably fast experience. Improved user experience would also be welcome. Another site that they own – http://indianrail.gov.in/ – is a brilliant example of how a website should NOT be designed.

Here’s to the Indian Railways wishing them the best in their endeavour. Be tuned for more updates :)

Filed under misc
Jul 5, 2011

IRCTC releases new version of its site

1 Comment
IRCTC has released a new version of its site. This version of its site had been in beta for a while. The new site is easier to use when planning a journey. Watch out for more details here. The new site gives a very good interface if you're going to plan a journey. The new system is problematic for frequent travellers though. With the introduction of captcha in the quick book page things are harder now. Most of the time it doesn't load at all.
Filed under misc
Sep 10, 2010

IRCTC disabled right click

6 Comments

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"

Filed under code, misc
Jun 9, 2010

What PQWL means on a railway ticket

43 Comments
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.
Filed under misc
May 19, 2010

CKWL status

23 Comments

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 :P

Filed under misc
May 11, 2010

Booking tatkal tickets on IRCTC the supercool way

40 Comments
Update : IRCTC has blocked Quick book from 8 AM - 9 AM. This method will not be useful in such a scenario. 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.quick book on IRCTC 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.add complete form as profile A new window like this will now open up Autofill forms profile 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) :P
@gjoos : i want my name included in that blogpost if you want me to TRY booking tickets for you tomorrow !!! :P
So, Divya chechi.. this post is dedicated to you as well :P Update : Wondering what CKWL means? Check out my blog post on CKWL status on Tatkal railway ticket.
Filed under misc
Dec 31, 2009

CKWL on Tatkal railway ticket

90 Comments
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. Pretty much any 4 letter acronym ending in WL is some Waiting list quota or another. For instance if you have been wondering what PQWL means in IRCTC, then it is a Pooled 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.
Filed under misc
Dec 9, 2009

Categories

Archives

Meta