Indian Railways – One hell of a ride! : Blog #261

Indian Railways – One hell of a ride!

India has the world’s third largest rail network in the world. To know how great this organization is, you also need to know that we are the second most populated country in the world. A whopping 1.25 Billion Indians use this network to commute.

Now usually, large transport networks around the world make a booklet available to help passengers. We do not under estimate our passengers that way. We know they will learn things on the fly. Come on! what is life without some adventure and adrenalin rush? There are a lot of things you need to know if you were to use this mammoth of a service. There are some hidden tacit knowledge which Google might not be able to tell you. There might be some interesting questions that come to your mind like “Who is that guy in black blazer in the train and which disco is he going to? Is he Barney?” This blog is an attempt to answer such questions.

How do I get started on a train journey? – Well if you are among those who believe in travelling with dignity, you will need to have a ticket. You may book it either through a railway station or through the website – www.irctc.co.in .Now, if you are trying to book it through website, get some Chinese bamboos, a laughing Buddha, arrange your table as per feng shui - all that will bring luck to you because you need a hell lot of luck to book a ticket through this website. Am I being too harsh on them? Yes! Ok then, it works wonderfully well during normal hours. The problem occurs when you want to book a ticket on short notice. But isn’t most of our travel on short notice? So I am not being too harsh on them, am I?

How to book tickets on short notice? – Through an option called ‘Tatkal’ for booking tickets a day before your travel. So if you are travelling tomorrow, you can book a ticket today under ‘Tatkal’ option for a higher price. Timeslots are allotted on the website to book Tatkal tickets depending on the class of travel you choose. For AC (Air Conditioned) classes, booking is from 10:00 – 11:00 AM and for Non – AC classes, it is from 11:00 AM.

There are classes of travel? – Yes, in AC compartments, there are three types – 1^st AC, 2^nd AC and 3^rd AC. They are also known as 1 tier, 2 tier and 3 tier AC compartments. The tier is indicative of how many berths are present in a coupe. If there are 3 berths on one side of a coupe, it is a 3 tier compartment. If there are 2 berths, it is a 2 tier compartment. You get the drift, right?

Now coming to the Non AC compartments. This is interesting. Take a notepad and pay close attention. There is a first class,sleeper class, a sitting class and a general class. A first class is one where you have the privacy of a closed room and it is luxurious .A sleeper class will have berths on which you can lie down. This is essentially a 3^rd AC compartment with the AC taken away and the glass windows replaced by iron grills.

The sitting class as the name implies is to sit and travel. You won’t be able to lie down. This has 2 variations – CC and 2 S which stands for Chair Car and Second sitting respectively. Chair car will have AC and 2S will not have AC.

The general class is one when you travel without reservation. If you are one of those who love to travel on an impulse, this is the class for you. You take a ticket from the counter at the railway station, hop on and travel. Statutory warning – This class will be extremely crowded and travel will not be a very pleasant experience.

How do I spot my train at the station? - Each train has a 5 digit number and a name to it.

Names will be mostly with the cities between which the train commutes like the one is picture here is Chennai Express. The name will be written on a board on the first and last compartment of the train. If you are lucky, there will be an electronic display of name on all compartments. At the station, it will be mentioned as to on which platform does each train arrive. You need to look for 'coach position' chart which indicates where exactly on the platform does each compartment arrive. Many a time, this chart will be missing at the station. How do you figure then? Ask the shopkeepers on the platform. They will be more than happy to tell you.

Ok I have found my train. Now, how do I know which is my seat? – There is a train attendant for each compartment who will guide you to your seats. Yeah right! Are you kidding me? It is a complex set of codes which one needs to decrypt to understand where your seat is located among the 1000+ seats in a train. All we will tell you is S11, SU 64. Now you know why all the Indian kids are great at coding & decoding? ;). The meaning of this alpha numeric string is as below:

S11 -  Sleeper coach number 11. If is it B2, it means Third AC coach number 2. If it is A1, it means second AC coach number 1. If it is CC4, it means Chair car coach number 4. If it is D5, it means second sitting coach number 5. FC stands for First class.

SU is Side Upper. It has other variations – SL is Side Lower, LB is Lower Berth, MB is Middle Berth and UB is Upper Berth.

64 is your seat number. If you are 6 feet and above in height, pray and hope that your seat number is not a multiple of 8. If it is a multiple of 8, it would mean that your seat is side upper which is shorter than other berths and you will find it difficult to sleep.

Why do other people come and claim my seat? - There is a PNR number which you can use to check the status of your ticket. The status of your ticket will be any of these three – CNF (Confirmed ticket), RAC (Reservation against cancellation) and WL (Waiting List).  

If it is CNF, rejoice and revel; you can travel with a berth/seat allotted to you. If it is RAC, you are sharing a berth with a fellow passenger. This is when another person comes and claims that it is their seat. Calmly and patiently, tell him/her that it is RAC. If there are any other seats vacant, then the TTR will come and allot the free seat to either one of you and the berth becomes yours. If there are no free berths available, you will need to sit and travel.

Who is that guy in the black blazer? – Good question. He/She is the Ticket Examiner(TTR). If you see a person in a dashing black suit and a crisp white shirt, don’t ask him which disco he is going to. Because, he is not! He is just doing his job of the ticket examiner and that is his uniform.

How will you know that you have reached the station that you want to get down? – Other rail networks around the world might be resorting to usual methods like announcements or electronic displays. But not Indian Railways! We do things in Swag! What the passenger needs to do is to ask people sitting next to you, pray and hope that they were keeping a watchful eye on the stations passing by. If this doesn’t work, look outside. There will be one yellow board somewhere with the station’s name on it, like the one here. So if it is night time, how do you know which station it is? Follow the same process except asking the person sleeping in the next berth.

            Is this blog an exhaustive description of the wonder that is Indian Railways? Absolutely not! These are some of the many queries that occur to a first time traveler. Inspite of all its foibles, Indian Railways have kept our vast country connected and on the move and continues to do so. We are mighty proud of our railways!

Other useful railway sites :

A one stop shop - http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

Site for passenger trains' information - http://erail.in/

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