Train Travel made easy

Way back in late 90's, to book a train ticket, I used to follow this tedious process: Go to the Reservation Center at Railway Station, squabble with the parking-lot guy to park the vehicle, go inside and fill the form manually (If I forget a Pen, I am at the mercy of others who can lend me a pen) and stand in the Queue to get my chance to submit the reservation form. If I am lucky I would get the tickets I need in one go or sometimes I would have to interact with the officer at counter (who loses patience if you ask for more than 2 options) to get what I want. Later, If I my travel plans change, I had no other option but to go the Reservation Center again to cancel my booking. I had to go through the entire rigor again, wasting another precious day's time. Needless to say, there used to be intense discussions at home before planning travel and there used to be a sense of unease till the actual travel happens.

In the last decade, I never had to undergo all these insane experiences to book my train tickets. I can easily book my tickets online at http://irctc.co.in from the convenience of home and get an e-ticket. I can take a print-out of this ticket and carry it during the travel. If I want to cancel my ticket, I can do so through the same site. Now, there are more sites like MakeMyTrip (http://makemytrip.com), cleartrip (http://cleartrip.com) and Yatra (http://yatra.com) through which I can book train tickets online. 

In India, from e-commerce perspective, Travel has been the first category which has made people comfortable purchasing online. This is the category which had about 90% revenues in e-commerce space a while ago in India. 

Thanks to IT - I had not been to a Railway Reservation Center in the last decade !