Let me give you a brief history of where I am coming form so you can appreciate my praise for the website. I work 6 days a week and work in a BPO.
That means when everyone is awake I sleep and that also means that I cannot under normal circumstances stand in an hour long queue to book a ticket. The only day left will be a sunday and standing in a long queue and waiting for my turn to come is not my idea of an Ideal sunday. Now I was just planning to forgo a days sleep and go to the nearest booking office and get my ticket booked, when I decided to see if there was a ticket available for my destination. I logged on to IRCTC.co.in and was a little perplexed to see that I had to register just to make a inquiry. But once I had registered I found out that I could select my destination and just click on a button and poof! the availability was there. Now I have no credit card and never intend on having one either so I half expected myself to be buying the ticket online. But hold on just on a hunch I see that there is a button that says make payment. I clicked on the button and saw that I can make a payment via my bank by net banking!!! and to top it off no extra charges for the transaction!!. So I decided to try the service and guess what? the ticket is booked and I did not move an inch from my chair (although everyone says I need the exercise). The ticket will be delivered to my office address and that is a bonus because that means I do not have to be here to receive it either. I have a valid PNR number and a simple click can even tell me the status of my courier!. WOW now this is what I call service. So not only is my ticket booked if the courier is delayed I can track the status on line. The charges for this nothing!! The computer is free and so is the surfing. So in a nutshell here are the salient features of this brilliant site. I did pay 60 Rs. as internet service charges, but in the bigger scheme of things thats peanuts compared to the time and effort saved.
1) No credit card required all you need is netbanking
2) All major credit cards and Banks are supported
3) The site is really easy to use and very very informative
4) Can check the status of your ticket if it is on waiting list
5) You can trace the courier online too!
All in all I forgive indian railways for making me wait in long queues all these years.