Do you know that you can do railway enquiry on Indian Railways by sending SMS from your mobile phones? IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd), a corporation under the Indian Railways have facilitated these Train and other Indian Railways Enquiries through various mobile service providers including Airtel, Aircel, MTNL and more.

The benefit of the SMS service is that passengers can access information even on the move. However, the SMS service would come at a premium and would be charged at Rs 3 per message.

What enquiries on Indian Railways can be made through through SMS?

The following Indian Railways Enquiries can be made through SMS.

• Train Seat Availability
• Train Ticket Fare
• PNR Status
• Train Status i.e. Train running information

All that a passenger needs to do is SMS the queries to 139 and the information would be provided within minutes.

Recently, IRCTC had introduced ‘book a taxi’ service enabling passengers to hire the taxi from their home to the railway station by calling 139.

For eg., if you want to know the seat availability of a particular Indian Railways Train then all you need to know is

• The STD code of the departure and arrival stations
• Code for class of travel
• Type of Quota for travel
• Date of journey
• Train number

The various codes for classes of travel are:

• 1A – first class AC
• 2A – AC 2 tier sleeper
• FC – First class
• 3A – AC 3 tier sleeper
• CC – AC chair car
• SL – Sleeper class
• 2S – second sitting

and the various types of quotas are:

• General quota
• Ladies quota
• Lower Berth quota
• Defence quota
• Foreign tourist quota
• Tatkal quota

SMS to 139 shall be sent in the following format:

Train <Train no> <Date of journey ddmmyy> <STD code of from station> <STD code of to station> <class> <class type>

For eg:, if the train number is 2217, date of journey is 24/09/2010, From station is Bangalore (STD code – 080), class is AC 3 tier sleeper (3A) and quota type is General quota (G), then send SMS to 139 as below:

Train 2217 240910 080 011 3A G

For knowing PNR status, you shall send SMS to 139 by typing PNR (give space) (type PNR number) . For eg, if the PNR number is 1234567899, send SMS to 139 as below:

PNR 1234567899

Similarly for making an Indian Railways Train enquiry, send SMS to 139 by typing the station code or station name along with his train number i.e.

Train <Train no> <Date of journey ddmmyy> <station code>

and for knowing the Train Fare, send SMS to 139 as below:

Fare <Train no> <Date of journey ddmmyy> <STD code of from station> <STD code of to station> <class>

Most of the cell Operators have this option as of now.

For more details visit http://irctc.co.in/sms_139.html

IRCTC Contact Info: