Waiting list confirmation chances - Indian Railway

There is a large number of waiting lists associated with Indian Railway ticket booking system. Read more about the types of waiting lists and chance of confirmation of these waiting lists.

Majority of the people in India is depending on trains for internal long distance journey. So booking tickets for trains is common in every Indian's day to day life. But the confusing part about Indian railways is its ticket booking system. There are many different types of trains with different types of coaches, each with various pricing scheme. In these trains itself there are various kinds of quotas and special reservations. So the entire seat allocation of Indian railways is little bit confusing.

Seat allocation while booking train ticket

       When you are booking a ticket in Indian railways, your ticket can come in any of the many categories like confirmed, RAC, WL, CKWL etc. How these statuses are coming and what are the meaning of these is the topic of discussion here.

Confirmed tickets

       Once the booking for a train has started, first booking will start for all seats. The status of these ticket will be confirmed.

RAC tickets (Reservation against Cancellation)

 Once all seats are over, still booking will continue, but this time the status of the tickets will be RAC(Reservation against cancellation) . All those people who are holding RAC ticket can travel in the train. But they may have to share the seat with one more fellow. Because in RAC, same seat will be allotted for two people. As these are sleeper seats, there will be enough seat for two persons to sit. Usually most of the RAC ticket will become confirmed, once the journey is started, because ticket examiner is supposed to give the confirmed seats of persons who are not traveling to RAC holders. RAC booking will continue to some additional 90 seats. Usually these seats will be side seats (side upper or side lower).

Waiting lists.

Even if the additional 90 seats of RAC also over, ticket booking process will not stop. Booking will continue as waiting listed tickets. For the waiting list tickets the limit is nearly 300. After that booking will stop for the train. Out of these waiting lists there is  a large number of  confusing varieties. Different types of waiting list are,

WL

This is the normal waiting list. If it is shown like WL30, that means there are 29 waiting people before you to get at least an RAC ticket. Sometimes it will show like WL84/WL50, this means when booked the status was 84, but now you are at 50th position. ie only 49 more people waiting in front of you. Rarely this waiting list will be mentioned as GNWL also, which is general waiting list.

CKWL

These are waiting lists for tatkal tickets. If you are trying to book train ticket through tatkal one day before the day of journey, there will be only CKWL after confirmed ticket. No RAC will be there. CKWL will get confirmed only if somebody with confirmed tatkal ticket cancels their ticket, probability of which is very less. So confirmation chance for CKWL is less. Also it will not move to RAC, it will directly become confirmed if you advance from CKWL. As there are some additional quota tickets, you will get confirmed tatkal ticket while preparing chart even if you are in CKWL. Upto CKWL 15 will get confirmed like this.

PQWL

These are Pooled quota waiting list. Region wise some trains will be sharing some pooled quota. Usually these, quota is possessed by small stations in the middle of the travel route of main trains. As they will not come in the main quota of starting point people, this quota is necessary for giving some waiting list preference to the people from the middle small stations. In short these seats are aimed at travelers boarding or unboarding from intermediate stations. Confirmation chance for these seats is also less as it is a very small quota.

RLWL   

This is called Remote Location waiting list. RLWL is aimed for the travelers from non starting main stops like main cities or metros to small stops before terminating stop. Unless these people are included with separate quota, a large number of people boarding from intermediate cities will not be considered equally. Waiting list confirmation chance for these waiting lists depends on the cancellation of tickets booked in these quota.

In addition to these there are some other quotas created to help travelers from all categories. It includes RQWL, Ladies quota, Foreign tourist quota, Emergency quota, against all of these there will be waiting lists also.

If you want to read more about waiting lists read on,

IRCTC waiting lists and chances of ticket confirmation

Tricks to book tatkal ticket on irctc 2012

IRCTC is opening tatkal tickets one day before the day of journey, for those who are traveling in emergency. But as most of the regular booking tickets are in waiting list in most of the routes, we are forced to try for tatkal tickets always, one day before the travel date. Number of people trying to book tatkal ticket at morning 8AM is so high that in some days even IRCTC.co.in servers will crash. Nothing more to say, it is very difficult to get tatkal ticket if you are not booking in a systematic way.

Tatkal Ticket booking process.

According to the new rules of IRCTC, tatkal booking is opening one day before the day of starting of the train. Booking process starts at morning 8AM. For tatkal tickets there will be some additional charges than normal ticket. I think the normal tatkal booking process is familiar to most of you. So I am not explaining it. Let us think how to improve the chance of getting a confirmed ticket. Before that there are some new rules from IRCTC, to avoid agents from booking tatkal using normal booking procedure.

New Ticket booking restrictions from IRCTC.

1. Now you can book only 10 ticket per month per user ID.
2. From one ID you can book only 2 tatkal or normal tickets between 8AM and 9 AM from one user ID.
3.  From one IP address you can book only two tickets (tatkal or normal) between morning 8AM and 9 AM. So more than one person is trying with same internet connection also, only the first two ticket can be booked, independent of how many user IDs you have. (In order to bypass this- Most of our internet connections are of dynamic IP. Once the modem is switched OFF and ON, IP will change. Again you can book two more ticket using that ID)
4. Now from one browser you can login using one ID only. If you want to try from two different browser from your own computer, you need to have two different login IDs. Even if your friend and you are sharing same ID, both of you cannot login at the same time between 8AM and 9 AM.

Tricks to book tatkal ticket quickly

Considering that there are so many restrictions for IRCTC, it is difficult for agents to book large number of ticket before 9AM. That is advantageous for normal ticket booking persons. Now what we have to consider is how to decrease the booking time. As within seconds tickets are getting booked, it is difficult to get confirmed ticket if you are booking slowly. Many persons are trying through internet and railway reservation counters, available tickets will be booked quickly. So each second is precious for busy routes.

Time saving tricks while booking tatkal ticket

1. You have to use more than one IRCTC account and browsers to increase the chance. If you have only one account, ask your friends for help. Also according to new rules, you need to login from different browsers. You may doubt that having many logins will decrease the bandwidth that you are getting for one single browser. This is not like downloading file. If you are downloading a file, when two downloads are simultaneously given, speed will be shared. But as irctc is a heavy traffic website, some of the requests will not get enough priority. So it is always better to try with more than one account. 
2. IRCTC website is optimized for internet explorer. But Mozilla firefox and Google chrome are more useful from my experience. As you have addons for these browsers you can try auto fill features, to make the booking faster.
3. Use auto fill addon for browsers. This is used to fill data in one second. When you are coming to the enter passenger details page, there are many details you need to enter in the page. If the number of passengers is high it will take more time. If you are using this addon and save the data previously by typing, in one second this addon will fill the data for you.
4.  It is always advisable to have your data with you before starting the procedure. Both starting and destination station codes, ID card details etc. Remember each second is precious.
5. Login before 8AM. At least by 7.55 AM and keep your session active by clicking here and there. While entering train details for tatkal ticket, time on the site should be after 8AM. For that after 8AM only you have to click on plan my travel link. Synchronize your system time with irctc site time. Then just after your system time reaches 7.59.55 click on Plan my Travel link. Then after loading site time will be just after 8AM. This time is important as many will start only by 8.01 and all. At this time itself you can advance.
6. Select a payment method that is taking less time. From some of my friends i have heard that HDFC bank internet banking is fast compared to other banks. Also do not click two times in any of the links is the payment section, it will result in online reservation error.

The above tricks are to save some time while booking tatkal ticket on IRCTC. But there are some additional tricks that will increase your chance to get confirmed tatkal ticket. Check the additional ticks shown below also.

1. IRCTC has launched mobile version of the site in the link https://www.irctc.co.in/mobile. Usually if you type this link from your desktop it will redirect to the desktop version of the site. Only from mobile, you can load the mobile version of the site. But using user agent switcher addons you can load mobile version of the site in your desktop. For detailed steps visit  New tips to get confirmed tatkal ticket from IRCTC 2012
2. If the train is starting from some far place which is one or two day far from your place, you have to book tatkal ticket in the day before the starting day of the train, not one day before the train reaches your place. Actually this opens a way to get ticket without much difficulty. Book for trains that are coming from far places and passing through your place in the second or third day of travel. The advantage you are going to get is - usually everybody will be trying for tatkal one day before only. As the tatkal booking of such trains starts early, there will be less people trying for tatkal in that train from your area in the correct day.
3. If you are getting "service unavailable" at any stage, just keep on refreshing the page finally it will come (unless no javascript alert window is coming. if anything is coming, you have to start again from login). Earlier there was no proper error handling in the site. But now even some transactions showing service unavailable while returning from bank also, gives confirmed ticket.
4. Another one thing that you can notice about irctc ticket booking is that it is difficult to book from BSNL internet connection even if it is broadband. It is because majority of Indians are trying form BSNL internet only, so it will be slow to access irctc site in that time. If you are trying some broadband connection service of other providers like tatateleservices, airtel etc you have more chance. Same thing is applicable for outside India internet connection also. If you are accessing from outside India, it is easy to book.

I think the above tricks are useful for you. If you have any doubts about any of the steps or you have any better ideas, please share....
Read about more such tips in,

Tips to get tatkal ticket from railway site IRCTC