).I need to book tickets for my brother Vimal who is currently pursuing his MSc in Coimbatore.So I need to get up early,maybe around 6 am.Then i go to the bathroom take a shower put on some wear,then I watch news for a few minutes.In the meantime I also check whether my internet is working else I need to run to the nearest booking Station(Thiruvanmiyur)which is approximately 3 clicks from my home.But I feel so lazy to do that(Sorry I am a very indolent guy ).Ever since Irctc launched its Online reservation system(which was limited to metropolitan cities),it provided passengers the easy to book tickets online without any need to stand in long queue’s.By 2006A,there were approximately 153 million registered users of Irctc.Not only this,but in featured in the list of top online money making giants(First time a public sector company).But after that ,the number of online users increased so drastically & at such an unprecedented rate that Irctc couldn’t handle the traffic & most of the users were running into Service Unavailable error.More details on how to fix this error can be found here.Under pressure Irctc decided to share its online booking features to a few more clients thereby attempting to reduce the traffic load.(Especially @ 8 A.M when the booking starts).These co-operators include some recognized names like Thomas cook(Thomas holidays),Yatra,Make my trip etc.Lets take a look @ the websites which allow online ticket booking for Indian Railways:
1)Irctc:This is the most widely used site for online booking.First of its kind,this site offers very limited advertiesments & literary no ad pop-ups.The biggest flaw with this is it cannot handle heavy traffic load on the opening day or while booking Tatkal tickets.An insider has claimed that inorder to maximise its revneue,Irctc is deliberately displaying the Service unavailable error,so that people will go & book tickets from Agents who charge atleast 50 to 200% more than the usual rate.This inadvertently increases Irctc’s overall revenues.In addition to this, a lot of people have also complained that Irctc sometimes doesn’t refund the cash for canceled or waiting-listed tickets.Visit Irctc here.Incase you want a more detailed guide on how to book ticket via Irctc & avoid Service Unavaiable error,Click here.Irctc launched its Beta version which is claimed to be more user friendly & advertisement free compared to the original website.Check it out here.
2)Southern Railway: This is a parallel site to Irctc.This website also shares the same database N features like Irctc .You will encounter the same Service Unavailable error just like Irctc website on the opening day or while booking Tatkal tickets.My fix also works for this site.You can take a look here.Click here to go to Southern railway online reservation page.
3)Thomas Cook:Thomas cook has entered the Indian Railway system with a bang.Named after the legendary founder “Thomas Cook“,they offer various services like group tours,holiday packages etc.Now they in collaboration with Irctc is providing online reservation service.This site is a lot faster than Irctc ,but there are two places where there is very high probability to get stuck.One is in the ticket availability screen & the other payment screen.But the likeliness of this error appearing is minimal compared to IRctc’s errors.You can visit their site here.
4)Clear trip: Cleartrip.com is the travel site that gives you what you need without any annoying fluff.All they care about is to provide a hassle free ticket booking experience.They have a simpler Gui & a better response than Irctc.Another add on feature is you can list the rate in ascending or descending order for the multiple trains available for your journey.But the only issue i found with this site is that there is no provision to book TATKAL tickets,which really is a big letdown as more n more people are after tatkal booking facilities.Apart from this I havent come across any issue with this site.Better add up the tatkal features else you will loose a lot of revenue & traffic.Visit the website here.
5)Yatra: Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd. is a smart travel company providing information, pricing, availability and booking facility for air travel, hotels, buses and car rentals across 5000 large cities and small rural areas around the globe. This website comes with a few lively flash pages & scripts so might be a bit slower than Clear trip.Having said that,they have an efficient ticket checking system where users can check ticket availability for forthcoming days without any need to search all over again(Something omittedin Irctc & other booking sites).There are only two drawbacks with this website as per me : One you need to enter the station name & not the code.Entering the station code will display irrelevant stations and the second is there are only 3 payment modes available :Icici internet banking,Itz cash N Credit cards.It would be better if they can include other payment options like Hdfc,Sbi debit etc.If those features are added then this is the second best site i would suggest for online ticket booking.Visit Yatra here.
6)Make My Trip: If you want a booking site which is the most high-tech of em all & offers better services all @ once then it has to be Make My Trip.Aimed to offer a range of best-value products and services along with cutting-edge technology and dedicated round-the-clock customer support,MakeMyTrip.com is India’s leading online travel company was founded in the year 2000.Although a bit slower than Clear trip(Also sounds rhyming with it),it provides the features skipped by Clear trip & Yatra making it an all in one site.They really have outsmarted the rest by thinking innovatively & are currently providing pretty good service.They have the second highest payment modes surpassed only by Irctc.They have a flash based site which adds more interactivity & gives its users ultimate experience.Visit Make my trip here.
Well there you have it.These are the online ticket booking vendors for Indian Railways until more & more enter this domain.I do hope that the Indian Railways can atleast make sure that their servers function 24* 7 so that atleast people from non Irctc’s can book tickets peacefully.Its really a headache booking ticket online now a days!
Having problems while trying to log in to Irctc website at 8 A.M?Thanks to a Greasemonkey script we can now hack into the website and try to improve the chances of getting the ticket booked.Although i dunno who invented the script,but i am really grateful to him to come to our aid,where it should have the Irctc guys to help us out.Ok this works as follows:
1)Install the greasemonkey pluggin for Firefox from here.If you’ve already installed the script, uninstall it (Tools->Greasemonkey->ManageUserScripts, select AJAXAvailability and click Uninstall).
2)Run the javascript from here.Its virus free.I assure you.Install it( This will be automatically be taken over by greasemonkey.)
So practically the next time after you log into irctc and head over to the plan my travel page,the script will be loaded automatically as shown below:
What actually Happens:
This grease monkey actually adds another column so that you need not wait to check for availability(a feature available in irctc beta version which is always down irrespective of time).We are just manipulating the UI. It uses a XPath expression to get the list of train numbers from the HTML content and then queries availability information from the server by generating the same query string that a click on the “Show Availability” button generates.
Personally even i have a rough time getting through Irctc in the wee hours of booking.I keep trying to get inside and i can get in with a probability of .7.Once in i generally encounter SERVICE UNAVAILABLE error and i press f5 and i doing to continously might get the page loaded up and you can proceed to the next stage.This trick really works.But caution:
When is it really available when you need it to?After all the preparations i make to book the ticket for my brother in the morning all i get is SERVICE UNAVAILABLE.It works perfectly before 8 A.M,even at 7:59.But when it strikes 8,it just throws this error.This has been the case for more than atleast 2 years in a row.Recently i came to know that Irctc has released its Beta version which according to Irctc director Subir Agrawal, , business consulting, South Asia Pacific -“IRCTC is one of the busiest e-commerce website in Asia. Due to the high traffic and number of people using the website, IRCTC has launched a new beta version which is much faster access over the older version of IRCTC Online Ticket Booking Engine. The new Beta version launched has much user friendly interface, it has fewer advertisements and graphics used are also attractive.”
Thanks a lot guys.You guys really rock.You cant even handle the traffic and you put banners and ads to publicize as if you were doing great favors for the customers.Irctc employs thousands of agents every month and they dont even care about fixing this problem.Either they make double or tripple transactions and when it comes to refunding the amount they wont even respond or worst will never get back to you.So many customers have complained against them in the consumer court /grievance cell and all the government does is play the blame-game.Even though Thomas Cook is also another website which allows booking,I have never been able to cross the payment gateway.If Irctc is reading this please try to rectify this situation.Not only you are charging excess for the online payment but also your giving us the most disgusting service ever provided.And you claim INDIAN RAILWAYS to be the most profitable organization.No wonder its true.If you keep cheating like this and ensure that monopoly in railway industry is perennial then you are destined for greatness.
You can login to the new beta version of IRCTC site at http://www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/beta.dll/irctc/services/home.do. When i tried to log in today in the Beta version all i get is this:
