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RailYatri Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status App Review

RailYatri Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status App Review

By Mir Rafae | Updated: 26 May 2015 17:03 IST

The heat is on, and many of us would have planned a holiday that involves a train journey. If that's the case for you, then head on to the Play Store and download RailYatri's Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status app. You can check your PNR status, or look up a weather forecast at the destination using this app. It is also useful if you want to look up the arrival status of a train - important whether you have a train to catch, or if you're picking up someone who's coming from out of town.

RailYatri's Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status is a single app that can fill all these needs, and apart from checking up the PNR and train status, it also shows you the most delayed trains at any given time, shows fog alerts, and the nearest train station. You can also order meals to be delivered to the train, or hire a taxi to pick you up at your destination.

In the main menu, the first section on the app shows you the local trains in your city. It provides information on all the trains running across your city. You can also change the city setting manually, and we changed our city to Mumbai to see how this feature works. Once we changed the city to Mumbai, the app then allowed us to either enter the name of the boarding and arrival stations, or select them from a drop down list. Upon entering these details, one can see all the trains running on the route, in the ascending order of the arrival - so the first train to reach the station is on top of the list.

The list also displays the time and status of the trains, indicating whether they are on time, or running slow. Once you tap on a train in the list, the app displays the arrival time at each station in its route. You can also see a static map of the entire rail network zooming out to see the whole city, or zooming into see just a few stations if you want to.

Aside from local trains, you can also look up crowdsourced information about railway stations. The nearest station for us was New Delhi, so we decided to check what all information was available. The app displayed info about a cafe called Jan Ahaar, which is IRCTC's economy cafeterias. It also mentioned the operating times of the cloak rooms as well as information about the nearest Metro station, and its timings. This would be useful for your originating and destination stations as well as those along the route when travelling.

RailYatri's Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status app also shows the list of all delayed trains, sorted by the number of hours the train is delayed. So the most delayed train is listed on top, and the time each train is delayed is displayed in red. You have to hope that any train you're booked on isn't a part of this list. The list has the train name and number, and if you tap on a train, can also see information like the estimated time of arrival for a train, view its timetable, see which trains are nearby, or follow its progress live. If you click on Live Tracking, the app loads the map, and displays the current position of the train, highlighting stations along the route.

The Live Announcements section displays news about any recent cancellations, diversions or rescheduling of trains. You can also look up the nearest railway station, and check its arrival and departure time table, or locate it using Google Maps through the RailYatri app. In the About Trains section, you can find the trains running between stations, time table and calculate the fare for journeys.

Aside from just looking up information, the app has a couple of other useful functions too. You can save upcoming trips by entering your PNR number in the My Trips section of the app. The cool part is that you don't even need to enter your PNR number - you can press a button to have the app scan for IRCTC's SMS, and automatically save it. After that, you'll be able to see the latest schedule of the train, the PNR status, and seat availability with forecast for tickets that haven't been confirmed. RailYatri says the Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status app tries to look at the historical booking data for your train to tell you how likely your ticket is to get confirmed, though there's obviously a margin of error, and you shouldn't depend on this entirely. And once you're on board the train, you can also use the speedometer and GPS train locator options to track your journey.

In the Quick Book section of the app, you can order food delivered to a train, or book a cab to pick you up when you arrive at your destination. These functions aren't integrated into RailYatri, but are powered by third-party providers instead. RailYatri has partenered with RailTiffin, Travel Khaana, and Yatra Chef for food, and Taxi For Sure and Cel Cabs for taxis. In both cases, the RailYatri app triggers a callback from the service provider, who then arranges the pickup/ delivery.

To book a meal, you have to enter the train name or number, and select the date of travel. Then you can place a request for a call back. To hail a taxi, just enter the name of the city you're travelling to, and ask for a callback. You have to verify your number with RailYatri's app once before you can request callbacks. These are useful functions, but we wish the app allowed the user to book the cab and order food within the app itself, so that the ordering/ booking could be done instantly and tracked, instead of waiting for a call.

The other problem with the app is its design. The user interface of the app could have been better, with options to add or delete widgets for trips. That way, if you regularly look up information for a particular train - maybe someone in your family lives out of town and visits once a month - then you would be able to quickly jump to that train's status without needing to save the PNR number in your trips each time. Instead, you have to scroll through the list of trains to get this information each time, or enter the PNR of the person who is visiting to save it in the My Trips section, where you would be able to quickly access it.

The app also has full page popup advertisements which can be quite annoying. Despite that, we loved the live tracking feature of the train, which saved a lot of time during a trip to pick up a relative from the railway station, whose train was running late. We would recommend the app for all the tourists who are travelling by train, because it's always better to get an extra information which helps in planning a journey better. It's not perfect, but the RailYatri Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status app is a one stop shop that meets many different Indian Railways-related travel needs, so we think you should install it.

RailYatri's Indian Rail IRCTC & PNR Status app is free and available on Android.

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