Indian Railways operate one of the largest train networks in the world. It runs more than 10,000 trains each day and carries lakhs of passengers from one place to another all over India. As such, it becomes important for almost every passenger to know the current status of the train in which he or she would be travelling. Though presently the passengers can use the official Indian Railways website – www.trainenquiry.com to know the current status of their respective trains but it does not provide one of the key information and that is the – “Current Location of Train”.
Certainly the present Train Inquiry website is useful as it tells the commuters whether their particular train is delayed or expected to arrive at the standard time depending upon the inputs such as train number or name together with the station name. But it fails to give any information on the “Current Location of Train”.
To overcome this drawback of the present Train Enquiry website, the IT department of Indian Railways is beta testing a new and improved version of the website which will not only tell the present status of trains but will also keep a track on the “Current Location of Train”.
Although the new website would go live in the coming weeks but if you want to test its beta version you can use the URL: http://www.trainenquiry.com/searchTrain.aspx and would have to select the New Look option. The new website has added good number of new features which makes it more useful than the previous version.
It is for the first time that AJAX is being used in Indian Railways website which gives search results instantly as you key in the train details. Now you don’t have to remember the train numbers or names. Simply enter the source and destination station name to get the results. You can then select your specific train from the list and proceed further.
For the selected train you are shown the departure times and the delay if any of the previous two stations that the train has crossed. It shows the “Current Location of Train” together with the actual time. It also depicts how far are the next two stations on the route and their expected time of arrival.
This beta version is certainly a welcome improvement over the previous Train Enquiry website and would help the passengers in providing them the valuable train information in a more systematic manner including the “Current Location of Train”. The new website will also be available to you on your mobile so that you can have train information on the go.