Railway Reservation

The history of Indian Railways dates back to the British rule. The British authority needed a fast and reliable mode of transport for troop movement in this huge country and then they inaugurated the first train in the sub continent on 16^th April, 1853. This was the first passenger train that ran over as stretch of 21 miles from Bori Bunder to Thane. This pioneer train steamed off at 3:30 pm with a loud applause and to the salute of 21 guns. The train consisted of 14 carriages carrying about 400 passengers reached the destination at about 4:45 pm.

Today the Indian rail system uses three different gauges depending on the rail traffic and area of the tracks. The first one is the Broad Gauge that is used in areas with high traffic and in areas with less traffic meter gauge is used. Mountain ranges like Nilgiri Mountain Railway and Darjeeling Himalayan Railway resort to narrow gauge. This rail system is further divided into sixteen zones. The zones are as follows:

• North
• North East
• North East Frontier
• Eastern
• South Eastern
• South Central
• Southern
• Central
• Western
• South Western
• North Western
• West Cental
• North Central
• South East Central
• East Coast
• East Central

Soon, the mobile companies would also start services to offer instant access to rail reservation and ticket booking. The SMS facility has already been started by Indian Railways to notify people about the reservation status. Recently, Indian Railways has commenced a single window facilitation centre to provide a range of services through a common telephone no. 139 and call made to this number would be treated as a local call throughout India.

This service would deal with all queries relating to arrival/departure of trains, PNR status and accommodation availability. Besides the basic services, this helpline would also work shortly to serve value added services and premium services including reservation, car rentals, booking tourism products and hotel booking. All these services on consolidation would give an impeccable enquiry system to the Rail Way of India.