The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited has their website on irctc.co.in. This is the only website where you can book railway tickets across India. It is a magnificent site. India has the 2nd largest railway network in the world. IRCTC is primarily a subsidiary of the Indian Railways that provides good food for its passengers in Express trains. And users get tickets delivered at their door steps without any hassles that are booked thru various unconventional methods such as thru SMS, Mobile Phones etc.

Im planning on a vacation to Goa, and really wanting to enjoy the trip, I decided to go by train. Unfortunately, there is only 1 train from Chennai to Goa in a week. And all tickets are booked upto June 6th. I am on waiting list right now, having booked thru the website for May 2nd from Chennai to Goa and May 8th from Goa to Chennai.

The last time I booked my ticket on IRCTC was about a year ago, when I went on a trip to Mavelikara in Kerala. It seemed to be a quick process at that time, as I knew the name of the train already, and all that I had to do was to check the availablity of seats and the berths, pay, print the ticket and take off. But this time, I tried to look for options. Such as Villupuram to Goa, Chennai to Goa, Chennai to Mangalore and Mangalore to Goa, Chennai to Bangalore and Bangalore to Goa.

To work out all these combinations and trying to spot connecting trains up and down was a great challenge, and I couldnt do anything at all. Their server was that slow. Unable to complete the search since my brain was tortured so badly, I just went ahead and booked the Chennai Vasco train up and down and am in Waiting List 10 now. God willing, I would get the ticket home delivered so that I can travel and have some fun after a long long time.

Looking at the servers of IRCTC, Im very proud of Indyahozting, which has a considerable number of clients with very active websites and mailboxes, and it has not very often been this slow.