Train Ticket Booking: Steps to Book Indian Railway Tickets Online

Are you looking out for the ways of how to book train tickets on IRCTC? Well, if yes, then you are at the right place. In this article, you will get to learn the step that you need to follow while Indian Railway ticket booking.

Undoubtedly, IRCTC online train ticket booking facility gives you comfort and saves your precious time. With this facility, there is no need to rush to reservation office and stand in a queue to book the ticket. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation offers you certain advantages to book train tickets online, sitting at home.

Some of these advantages include:
• When it comes to the prices, definitely it is cheaper. It is true that the difference is very less, though.
• Using the irctc.co.in, you can book your ticket anytime between 8 am and noon IST

Book Train Ticket Online at IRCTC

A few months ago, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has launched the feature of booking e-ticket on your mobile phone. So, if you are short on time and have to book your train ticket, you just need your mobile phone and an internet connection.

Initially, all you need to do is to register yourself on IRCTC portal. Once you will be registered, you can select your destination and date of journey.

Keep in mind that this feature is valid only for online railway ticket booking. If you want to buy the unreserved ones, you will have to visit the booking counter for unreserved tickets. In addition to this, if you want to book tickets from abroad, then remember, IRCTC will not accept the non-Indian credit cards. But as you all know, exceptions are always there. So, if you have Amex credit card, IRCTC will accept it.

You might be wondering what you will do if you do not have Amex. Well, you can use Cleartrip for booking your ticket from abroad.

Read the entire post to know what exactly you have to do while booking tickets.

Steps to Book Railway Ticket on IRCTC Official Website

Below is the procedure for online train ticket booking on IRCTC website. But before you begin with booking train, make sure that you have registered yourself on the portal. You can register by clicking on “Sign up” option and entering all the details the portal asks for. Once you are registered, follow the steps mentioned below.

Step 1: Start with the “Login” step

Log in to your IRCTC account by entering your user ID and password, along with the Captcha code.

Step 2: Input the details for IRCTC Train Ticket Booking

Enter the travel details including the origin, destination, and date of journey. Or if you know the train number and the class by which you want to travel, then you can simply click on the “Quick Book” tab. But, make sure that you do so only before 8 am and noon IST. This is because this option is not available at this interval of time.

You will also see a “Ticket Type” option on the screen, but it is baseless. This is because, when you book a train ticket online, IRCTC only provides you with one type called as “e-ticket” type. And for this type of ticket, you can easily take the print out from your computer. Using the online mode, you cannot book the “i-ticket” type of tickets. This type is now available only at the booking counter.

Step 3: Pick a train and class from the list appearing on the screen

Once you will start with IRCTC train ticket booking, there will be a list that will appear on the screen. This screen will display all the train that runs from the origin you selected to the destination on the date you have entered as your Date of the journey. If you find that there is no direct train, IRCTC will not suggest you with other routes to book a train ticket.

If you want to look for a transit route, you can try it on a 90di. It is a good website for such searches. But, if there are trains between the routes you selected, a list will appear on the screen with all the details of the train.

Step 4: Check for the availability

After picking up the train, date of journey, and other necessary details, next, you have to click on the abbreviation of the class of train. For example, if you want to book your ticket for “Chamundi Express” (#16216) and your preferred class is 2S (Second Sitting), in such case, you will have to click on “2S” link on the right side in the row of Chamundi Express.

Once you will click on it, a set of boxes will appear just above the list of trains according to the latest position of availability. The box on the top will display the position of availability for the journey date selected by you. And the other boxes will display the train’s availability position of subsequent departure dates.

There will be another box which would tell you the fare details for your journey (per passenger).

If you find that the seats/berths are available, then it would simply display it as “AVAILABLE” followed by the total number of available seats. If you find it to be suitable and encouraging, you can simply click on “Book Now” option, which would be just below the availability position.

Step 5: Enter the Passenger Details and Preferences

After clicking on the “Book Now” option, you will be redirected to the page where you will have to fill in the details of a passenger to book a train ticket. The details will include:

• Name, age, and gender of the passengers
• Passenger’s seat/berth preferences
• Meal preferences whether veg or non-veg (applicable on Shatabdi, Duronto or Rajdhani Express)
• Whether senior citizen concession is required or not (applicable for all women above 58 and men above 60 years)
• If you require the bedroll or not (this is applicable only to Sleeper Class Non-AC of Duronto Expresses and Garib Rath Expresses)

If there is any children of the age under 5 years is travelling, it is necessary to mention their names under the box “Children Below 5 Years”. While there will not be any charges for their seat/berth, but for the reserved passengers, these details are required by the railways.

Once you are done with this step, click on “Next” to continue with the process to book train tickets.

Step 6: Verify Details and Make Payment

After clicking on “Next”, a verification page will be opened. On this page, you can verify all the details. You will also see the final consolidated fare on this page.

If your details are correct, proceed to make payment using the preferred mode. You can make payment using Netbanking, Credit Cards issued within India (Amex for booking from abroad), Indian Debit Cards, and Cash Cards such as ITZ.

Sometimes, it might happen that your debit card isn’t listed under the category. In such cases, use any other payment gateway for Credit Card.

Step 7: Finally the Tickets Confirmation

After making payment, you will see a confirmation on the screen having all the details of your booking. Such details include PNR number so as to check the status of your booking. The complete passenger details in the passenger section. This section will tell you about the coach number and the seat/berth number. If your booking is in the waiting list, it will tell you the waitlist position.

There is a “Status” column which would tell you about your booking status at the time of booking. If your journey is “Confirmed”., the status will be “CNF”. But if it is waitlisted, the status will be “WL”.

Coach column will tell you the coach number.  If your booking is WL or if it reserved in First AC Sleeper (1A) or First Class Non-AC (FC), this column will be blank.

You can check your seat number, berth number or waiting list number in the “Seat/Berth/WL No.” section.

To make it easy for you to understand the abbreviations, here are the full forms:

Final Words

This is the procedure to book an Indian railway train ticket online on IRCTC. Following all these steps, you will be able to book your tickets on irctc.co.in. This would not only save your time but also offer you tickets at cheaper prices. Hope you have understood all the steps well. But, if you have any confusion or difficulty, please feel free to ask your queries in the comment section.