Before going into the details of various SMS services offered by Indian Railways, you must know about the latest M-Ticket facility for booking reservation tickets through SMS from your mobile phone. This could be a innovative decision and most comfortable service from Indian Railways as there is no need of print outs and ID proofs! There are plenty of other SMS services you can avail from Indian Railways. You need to go to the nearest Railway Counter for every thing. You can get most of the essential services and information to your mobile phone by just sending a SMS. You can get all these from http://www.indianrail.gov.in/railway_SMS.html . Following is the list of Mobile Operators for various regions. This is initial classification and can be altered later on. Customers who are already using www.irctc.co.in can use their existing user id and password to log in to the site and transact through your mobile phones. First time users can use the registration facility offered by the mobile operator or you can visit www.irctc.co.in and avail normal registration form from the site.
The Customer also need to choose ‘mobile booking’ option in the profile / registration page to avail all types of Mobile Booking facilities including SMS railway ticket booking. The user needs to submit details like mobile number, mobile operator, and preferred Bank for payment option. The Bank will be charging Rs 10 for this service for each booking. If you are using ICICI Bank, you will need to be registered to the ‘Mobile Shopping Service’ provided by ICICI Bank and should enter the ‘mShop Name’ through SMS. You can also get more details from IRCTC web page on SMS Ticket Booking.
Other SMS Services of Indian Railways: Indian Railway is already implementing SMS services for transactions such as checking your Railway ticket status (PNR Status) using SMS messages. You can also just send an SMS from your cell phone to 57886 to get any information on Railways. Important Railway inquiries like Train Alert, Train Status, Seat Availability, PNR Status, Train Information, Train Time Table, Train Schedule, Train Fare etc that are offered on the website www.indianrail.gov.in are available through your mobile phone through SMS facility also. Following are some important SMS services of Indian Railways:
1) Train Help Command: Sms HELP TRN to 54959
2) PNR Status: Sms PNR <10-digit PNR No.> to 54959
3) Ticket Availability: Sms TRNAV
For more information on the mobile service providers and the key words to be used on the mobile, please visit http://www.indianrail.gov.in/sms_Service.html