indian railways

Author – Nikita R Shankar
When it comes to travelling in India by train, the first question strikes is, how to get a confirmed railway ticket! We all have our stories about the uncertainty of getting a confirmed ticket at the Indian Railways. Standing in long queues at the reservation counters with family or friends accompanying you in another queue is also not a sure shot way of getting the desired train ticket. Even though IRCTC helped in changing the scenario of booking the train tickets in India by doing online reservations, there are times when getting an online ticket in tatkal quota also becomes next to impossible. But this is not the whole story. Today I am going to tell you about my tricks to get confirmed train ticket.

Read : 100% ticket confirmation under Foreign Tourist Quota

How to confirm train ticket in waiting list!

PNR status, booking an e-ticket, train timings, train status, seat availability and for many other queries, let’s not limit ourselves to IRCTC. Some of our country’s talented brains have come up with certain apps to help in tackling this problem. Based on their well-tested ideas and algorithms, they can tell you about the train ticket confirmation probability. They calculate the past railway records, the month of your travel, and your travel dates to provide you with fair possibility of getting a waiting ticket confirmed

Trainman App

Developed by ‘Trainman’, this app works well with Windows phones, Android and Apple sets. Trainman provides –

• Ticket confirmation prediction – Tells you about the chances of confirmation of your waitlisted ticket
• Trends – Check how much time a waitlist number took to get confirmed in past
• Live Station – helps to know the arrival and departures of trains at any stations within next 4 hours.
• Tracking the Train Running Status – track any running train through your smartphone
• Train timetable – Save the time table for offline use
• Platform number – lets you know on which platform your train is coming
• Average delay of any train- check the running history of any train
• Seat availability for next 4 months – shows availability in a train for next 4 months at one glance
• Coach position – what is the position of your coach from engine
• Railway inquiry, Helpline numbers, Tatkal booking tips, Train tips, information on various railway codes, etc.

ConfirmTkt App

Developed by ConfirmTkt.com. ConfirmTkt app is available at all Android, Windows, and Apple sets with iOS 7.1 or late, offers much user-friendly interface with features by which you can find –

• PNR Enquiry – PNR status with waiting list prediction & alternatives
• Trains between – Seat availability with probability of ticket confirmation
• Train fare – informs about the fare based on different classes and quota
• Running status – put any train’s number and get to know its live status
• Train schedule – complete information about a train timetable, including platform numbers at next stations, save it for offline use.
• Live station – informs about trains passing through a station in next 2 or 4 hours  
• Cancelled trains – list of all trains cancelled partially or fully
• Rescheduled trains – list of all trains rescheduled
• Diverted trains – list of all diverted trains on a given date
• Information on Mumbai local, metro and monorail
• Alternate option in the same train or other, if only waiting listed tickets are available
• Alternate – vacant seats from next or previous stations, if it is not available from your desired source station.
• Train enquiry – check live status of running trains, train schedule, cancelled trains
• Also book Bus, Auto and Cabs

Ticket Jugaad App

This app is only available for Android sets. Developed by ‘Hindgen’, Ticket Jugaad promises to provide –

• The list of alternate routes automatically with two different sets of views
• One is the information view, which gives the route and alternate ticket information.
• Another one is the route view by which you can see the availability of alternate tickets on actual route of the train with all the train and station schedule.
• Their video preview

90di.com website

90di.com is the oldest of this lot. This website which also has its mobile version.

• Search like a human – Instead of filling up forms, you can search naturally – ‘Bangalore to Delhi on next Tuesday’ or  ‘Trains from Asansol to Kolkata’ or ‘Kota to Mumbai by 3 AC on Friday ’
• Provides you with a list of transit stations, through which you can break your journey, if you don’t get a direct ticket from your source station to destination.
• Gives you option to choose your trip based on shortest travel time, cheapest fare or best train combinations
• Train+Flight

The charm of all these apps is that these offer you with the plan of doing a ‘break journey’ at different levels so that you can travel maximum portion of your journey comfortably with a confirmed railway ticket. For example, you may not get a confirmed ticket from source station A to your destination station B but you may get it if you change your source or destination with a few stations after of before them. You can travel rest of that journey either by rail, bus, cab or any other option suitable according to the availability. Not only this but these apps also provide you with those alternate routes through which you can easily travel your journey without stressing much.

So folks! Good luck and I hope these apps may help you to release you from the never ending stress you get during booking through IRCTC.