Rail Gaadi… Rail Gaadi…
Neeraj is now on his way to Hindaun City in Rajasthan. His train was an hour and half late to Andheri Station in Mumbai. 
I had woke up at 3 am Central US time so that we could talk prior to him leaving. He was still in the auto rickshaw heading towards the station. Once he reached the station, we ended up talking till past 5.30 am because the train hadn’t come. For a while I was really worried that he might have missed it, but then he had gotten the news that the train still hadn’t left Bandra Terminus.
He has a two hour gap between when his train reaches Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and his next train, so hopefully he won’t have a problem with getting on his connecting train.
Then back to sleep I went and at 8 am my alarm went off. 
I slept till 9. 
Now taking a break from work as I write this post.
Train System in India — It Could be Much Better
They got to have better organization with the railways then they do. After reaching Andheri station, there was no board or listing that told him which platform he had to go to for his train. He asked many different people, but no one knew. Finally he got to some inquiry office where the railway officer was able to tell him which platform.
Once he reached that respective platform, there was a sign that listed the trains that were suppose to be arriving or passing by but his train was not listed. 
After about half hour past its arrival time, he asked me to check online to see what the status is of his train.
Have you ever been on the Indian Railways site? It is a mess! We have millions and millions of IT professionals in India but still we are not able to make a decent site for the national railway system! So I looked on Arrivals, Departures, Spot Your Train, Find Your Train, you-name-it-I-tried-it, but still no information about his train. Now anyone would get kinda scared about if their train has been cancelled or delayed or even missed without any information or announcement. This is where the railway system needs some improvements.
If that Yadav Prasad Laloo would stop eating up the money and start doing something about the system, then only will there be chances of it getting better.
Here’s a list to get you started:
Railway officers should have the knowledge and be available for questions for all incoming/outgoing trains for their specific station. Announcements on a board should be posted on platforms and updated periodically so that customers stay updated on the train schedule. Their website should also be doing the same automatically (which for regular trains they are doing).
The key is that the customer should always stay involved in the process of the system. They should never feel that they are left out and don’t know what is happening or going to happen.
We haven’t even discussed the process inside the train (which is just whole other post :grin:). Even if the above gets better, it will be a miracle.
Alvida. Jai Mata Di.
November 10th, 2004 at 11:53 am
hmmm… i don’t think laloo will understand this
… you can try something related to gain bhais instead… 
November 10th, 2004 at 11:57 am
Indian Railways site is a piece of crap… The first time I visited the site, I had a hard time looking for the information I wanted to see…. It’s not at all user-friendly… Seems that somebody has just put up the links, added few scripts, and put up a database.. and bingo.. site was launched…
Even Indian Airlines site is crappy.. On the other hands, look at jet airways, air sahara… they have really spent money and have put up professional & good looking sites….
Actually, Govt.. ka kaam aisa hi hota hai india mein… kam chalaooo :P
November 10th, 2004 at 2:01 pm
The site is horrible Manpreet. Neeraj sometimes does his booking online. That site is a bit better than the regular Indian Railways site, but still not quite professional.
I have seen the Indian Airways site as well. Woh toh bilkul bakwaas hai! Haven’t seen the others that you mentioned.
Isliya India abhi tak peeche hain…yeh sab choti baatein theek se nahi karte hain.
November 10th, 2004 at 2:31 pm
These are the people to blame for state of the Indian Railways site.
The IRCTC website for railway bookings is slightly better. They do have those annoying animations all over the homepage but if you use Firefox or Opera you can easily block them. Two others problems are, one, you can use most of their services only during the day which doesnt make any sense. Sure, the reservation system has to be in sync with actual window reservations during the day but why prevent me from checking the status when you can do that on Indian Railways site anytime.
Two, you have to go through a painful registration process. That sucks.
Other than this, the interface is relatively cleaner than the nightmare of site Indian Railways have.
November 10th, 2004 at 6:43 pm
Very interesting
I will see the real thing what you are talking about 
I will take Indian train for the first time when I am going from Delhi to Shimla in December
ohhh that’s really sweet that you wake up so early for talking with Neeraj before he was leaving … it reminds me about me and Suhadi last time
I remember that time, he was in Australia and I was in Singapore, 4 hours difference. I wake up around 4 am for calling him and said good luck because he got an exam that day
November 10th, 2004 at 11:00 pm
Indian Railways Site is pretty impressive. I rmmbr. I used to create these kind of sites in 10th class when I first learned HTML.
Who creates framed sites these days? Y do they even need to show those dumb Ads?
The only way, India can make things better is “Privatization”. Manpreet’s comparison is very true.
BTW, I didn’t know that Indian railways was the busiest in the world
November 11th, 2004 at 8:59 am
Thanks for your comment!
I am sorry that it might have shown up late but it was into moderation because you had three links. 
You are going to Shimla too Mona??
Wow that’s great!! Good for you! You are really going to travel alot while you are in India (that’s the best way to do it anyway beacuse there is so much to see 
).
Aaww that was so sweet of you to wake up for Suhadi just to wish him.
I didn’t mind waking up at all, in fact, i wanted to talk to Neeraj prior to him leaving just so I know that everything went alright. I know you would have done something the very same for Suhadi. 
Privitization eh? That’s hardly going to happen.
That was interesting Gaurav that Indian Railways are the busiest. They seem like they were but till now I didn’t know for sure.
November 11th, 2004 at 9:55 am
Mr Laloo
When you have to catch the train, it’s true… the coolies have more knowledge about the arrival & Departure than railway dept.
As regards the online booking system, on 30th Oct, I attended a seminar titled Company Secretary & IT, where one of the speaker was Mr Deepak Chhabra, General Manager, Passenger Railway System (PRS), CRIS.
He is the person who maintains the website. In his 40 minutes speech, he was very positive about the Online Reservation System provided by his department.
Wish I knew all these points before the seminar… but still I can email him link to this discussion
November 11th, 2004 at 12:30 pm
That Deepak guy will definitely be positive because its his group that outputted that behkaar sight that we call the Indian Railways website.
Maybe I should have posted this earlier…that or should you have told me that you were going to that seminar.
November 11th, 2004 at 12:57 pm
I attended the seminar only because one of the topic to be covered was Cyber Law, my favorite
Didn’t had much idea about other topics
But you could have posted it earlier, only if Neeraj had travelled then, but Neeraj would have travelled, only if Diwali was in October end
And Diwali could have been earlier only if Priests had announced some earlier date for Diwali
So Priests are responsible for the delay. Otherwise we could have some improvements in our Online Railway Reservation system
Does this make any sense
November 11th, 2004 at 12:59 pm
I still think Laloo was involved somewhere.. he must have paid the priests to not move the Diwali date forward to October so that Neeraj wouldn’t go during that time and then i wouldn’t make this post!
Good one!
November 11th, 2004 at 1:07 pm
Poonam, glad to know you agree with those points as well. And oh I didnt worry about the delay…figured that some kind of moderation was involved. :)
Ankur! It’s a small world isnt it. Here I was reading about CRIS yesterday and today I come across someone who just met the head honcho of CRIS few days ago. That’s why I love the internet!
And thanks for offering to write to him about it. Though I think it would take a lot of explanation to convince someone in his position, to implement change, than merely complaining [which is what I did]. Maybe I should do a thorough critique of the site on my blog.
I mean, IndianRail.gov.in is such an important site. The designers, if there are any, seem completely unaware of site’s usability while hundreds of users suffer everyday.
November 11th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
The number of people that visit site has to be quite high and its necessary that it is accessible and customer-friendly.
The Internet is great. It has made the world much much smaller.
November 11th, 2004 at 1:29 pm
Maybe Poonam…
Manu:!: You are welcome.
The purpose of his presentation was to show the progress of Railway in IT field. So he talked more about the number of reservations being done online in a day, etc in progressive way. And he also added around 30% of the tickets booked are cancelled.
On this a fellow Company Secretary, very rightly raised the point, then why the online system doesn’t provide for cancellation facility, as for canellation, we have to run to the Railway booking center.
On that he said we are looking into the possibility of implementing such a system. Most of his reply were similar.
Plus he added the new PNR number system is going to be implemented, in which a PNR number will never be repeated in the next 5 or 10 years (don’t remember exactly).
Manu, if you want to have the email id of Mr Deepak Chhabra, I will email you.
You can send him the suggestions, as you are an expert in ecommerce websites.
And who knows maybe they decide to hire your services in future
November 11th, 2004 at 2:12 pm
Tks Ankur for giving an overview of the presentation and for the kind words. I just sent you an email.
November 16th, 2004 at 10:43 am
July 21st, 2006 at 4:46 am
Its really sad to see such responses.
The site is definitely impressive considering that it has already implemented online ticketing wherein you can just take a printout of the ticket. Also online cancellation of such tickets is also available.
One has to discount the quality of website by the fact that Indian railways is still a government organisation, overstaffed and employing >15 lac people.
Inspite of this, its a leap of faith & a paradigm shift for them to allow the customers to book tickets and select their seats themselves.
the frontend can improve but kudos to them for having a robust middle and backends to handle such a complex web.
You all sound biased stereotypes with a predetermined view about everything government. You are in for a surprise