How rail reservation used to work before online system?

[amitava82]

Well i was thinking about how Internet has changed the world n this question has come in to my mind. How Indian railway reservation system used to work before online reservation was implemented? how they used to manage this complicated system? First ticket I've ever booked was in 2002. So i don't have any clue. Does any one of you have have any idea or did you book ticket before online reservation system was implemented?

[alsiladka]

As far as i think, there must have been reserved seats for every station. You would have to go there manually and get the ticket.

Many villages do not have online reservation even today!!

[hailgautam]

Yes, every station used to have fixed number of seats and you could get your reservation out of those seats only, I remember traveling like that, in the 80s.

By the way I stumbled upon this http://www.irfca.org/index.html, it's a Indian Railway Fan Club, got nice history of the Indian Railways also read the FAQs on the operation very informative.

You know there are 8 links with pakistan but only one is operational through wagha...

[amitava82]

Wow that must have been very hectic. Thanks for the info n link

[desertwind]

@hailgautam: Thanks for the link.

[amitava82]

here is a piece of info i fond in above link in the history section

2002:
Aug. 3: IR begins online train reservations and ticketing over the Internet.

is this info correct? coz i booked my first ticket in 2002 june. that time it was online system

[Choto Cheeta]

the funny thing was in old days..

Suppose u go to Howrah (Kolkata) to book a ticket for Noth Bengal Station name New Jalpaiguri to go to Darjeeling...

u may find all tickets are sold out... but as on central server, therefore one can buy a ticker from a quota of another station in between...

it used to very funny...

[desertwind]

@amitava: you bought a ticket online in 2002 ? (I mean bought a ticket from a website)

Computerized ticket system started by around 1985, and centralized reservation system at 1995, i think.

[amitava82]

oops sorry. my bad. i though they meant to say that computerized reservation system.