Gone are the days when you had to stand in long queues in Railway Stations to get tickets for your travel needs.In India where Railways play a significant role for commuters, a system to streamline the process of reservation/ticket disbursement has been a long standing requirement.
IRCTC, A govt of India enterprise has floated a website by the same name which attracts a lot of traffic currently. The average looking site is however one of the most popular portal for travelling in India.The links provided are easy and simple making it the obvious choice of all .
"Plan My Travel" provides you the list of trains based on your inputs on the source and destination stations as well as the travel date. The output of the link is a list of trains with their timings and availability in the different classes available on the train.Booking is just few clicks away with few more prompts on the name of the traveller and other informations. Payment is either through netbanking or Credit/Debit card
The tickets could be either e-ticket or i-ticket, the latter being sent on the address you specify.
Quick book options helps you to reserve
"My transactions" shows the statement of all bookings/cancellations you might have done through the website complete with details like date, train no and the status.
You need to have a User ID to begin with , the process of registering being a simple one
There are also provision to book for luxury trains for your holiday needs as well.
The only limitation with the website is the slow response at times when the traffic chokes at times leading to poor experience.This happens usually at the morning hours when simultaneous attempts happen for booking on Tatkal category.But this is just a small concern, compared to the popularity the website enjoys.A rework on the capacity front as well as changeover on the looks of the website could actually do wonders.