How the berths are booked in Railways?
Why IRCTC does not allow you to choose seats?

Would you believe that the technical reason behind this is PHYSICS.

Booking...
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a seat in a train is far more different than booking a seat in a theatre.

Theatre is a hall, whereas train is a moving object. So safety concern is very high in trains.

Indian railways ticket booking software is designed in such a way that it will book tickets in a manner that will distribute the load evenly in a train.

An example to make things more clear : Imagine there are sleeper class coaches in a train numbered S1, S2 S3... S10, and in every coach there are 72 seats.

So when some one first books a ticket, software will assign a seat in the middle coach like S5, middle seat numbered between 30-40, and preferably lower berths (Railways first fills the lower berths than upper one so as to achieve low centre of gravity.)

And the software books seats in such a way that all coaches have uniform passenger distribution and seats are filled starting from the middle seats (36) to seats near the gates i.e 1-2 or 71-72 in order from lower berth to upper.

Railways just want to ensure a proper balance that each coach should have for equal load distribution.

That is why when you book a ticket at the last, you are always allotted an upper berth and a seat numbered around 2-3 or 70, except when you are not taking a seat of someone who has cancelled his/her seat.

What if the railways book tickets randomly ? A train is a moving object which moves around at a speed of around 100km/hr on rails.
So there are a lot of forces and mechanics acting on the train.

Just imagine if S1, S2, S3 are completely full and S5, S6 are completely empty and others are partially full. When the train takes a turn, some coaches face maximum centrifugal force and some minimum, and this creates a high chance of derailment of the train.

This is a very technical aspect, and when brakes are applied there will be different braking forces acting at each of the coaches because of the huge differences in weight of coach, so stability of train becomes an issue again.

Good information worth sharing, as often passengers blame the Railways citing inconvenient seats/ berths allotted to them

Source : LinkedIn

Fastest trains of India (Zonewise list) (in end-to-end average speed and above 55 km/h)

Note: I've included PRE-COVID pandemic and COVID special status of trains.

CR (Central): 22221/22222 CSMT Hazrat Nizamuddin...
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Rajdhani Express—86 km/h

ECoR (East Coast): 12281/12282 Bhubaneswar New Delhi Duronto Express—76 km/h

ECR (East Central): 12309/12310 Patna Rajdhani Express—83 km/h

ER (Eastern): 12249/12250 Howrah Anand Vihar Terminal Yuva Express—86 km/h

KR (Konkan): No tains found over 55 km/h

NCR (North Central): 12033/12034 Kanpur New Delhi Shatabdi Express—90 Km/h

NER (North Eastern): 82501/82502 Lucknow New Delhi IRCTC Tejas Express—82 km/h


NFR (Northeast Frontier): 12041/12042 Howrah New Jalpaiguri Shatabdi Express—70 km/h

NR (Northern): 22435/22436 Varanasi New Delhi Vande Bharat Express—95 Km/h

NWR (North Western): 12985/12986 Jaipur Delhi Sarai Rohilla AC Double Decker Express—69 Km/h

SCR (South Central): 12285/12286 Secunderabad Hazrat Nizamuddin Duronto Express—77 Km/h

SECR (South East Central): 22867/22868 Durg-Hazrat Nizamuddin Humsafar Express— 66 Km/h

SER (South Eastern): 20839/20840 Ranchi New Delhi Rajdhani Express via Bokaro—78 Km/h

SWR (South Western): 12213/12214 Yesvantpur Delhi Sarai Rohilla AC Duronto Express—75 km/h

SR (Southern): 22671/22672 Chennai Egmore Madurai Tejas Express—79 Km/h

WCR (West Central): 12059/12060 Kota Hazrat Nizamuddin Jan Shatabdi Express—77 Km/h.

WR (Western): 12951/12952 Mumbai Central New Delhi Rajdhani Express—89 Km/h

Aapke is useful info m mera thoda sa yogdan
➡️➡️➡️Fastest Sampark Kranti Based on AverageSpeed (Running in Covid Time as don't know when regular train will come back but timetable will be same as covid)
1) 09146Gujarat Sampark Kranti(Nzm-kdcy) 77km/hr
2)02918 Gujarat Sampark Kranti (Nzm-Adi) 76km/hr
3)02529...
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West Bengal Sampark Kranti 74km/hr & 02127 Madhya Pradesh Sampark Kranti 74km/hr
4)04564 Goa Sampark Kranti 70km/hr
5)02525 Jharkhand Sampark Kranti 66km/hr & 02883 Chhatishgarh Sampark Kranti 66km/hr
6)02447 Uttar Pradesh Sampark Kranti 65km/hr & 02819 Odisha Sampark Kranti 65km/hr
7)04559 Kerala Sampark Kranti 64km/hr & 02753 Marathawada Sampark Kranti 64km/hr
8)06249 Karnataka Sampark Kranti 63km/hr
9)02781 Andhra Pradesh Sampark Kranti 62km/hr & 04739 Rajasthan Sampark Kranti(Bikaner) 62km/hr
10)02463 Rajasthan Sampark Kranti(Jodhpur) 60km/hr & 02446 Uttar Sampark Kranti 60km/hr
11)02629 Karnataka Sampark Kranti 57km/hr & 02566 Bihar Sampark Kranti 57km/hr
12)05359 Uttaranchal Sampark Kranti(Ramnagar) 48km/hr
13)Uttaranchal Sampark Kranti(Kathgodam) 44km/hr

List of Duronto Expresses sorted according to their Average Speeds
~MMCT NDLS Duronto @80.740 kmph
~MAS NZM MAS Duronto @76.443 kmph
~NZM PUNE NZM Duronto @76.382 kmph
~SC NZM SC Duronto @75.510 kmph
~BBS...
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NDLS Duronto @75.217 kmph
~SDAH BKN SDAH Duronto @75.166 kmph
~HWH CSMT HWH Duronto @73.498 kmph
~CSMT NGP CSMT Duronto @72.942 kmph
~YPR DEE YPR Duronto @71.734 kmph
~MMCT INDB MMCT Duronto @71.668 kmph
~HWH PUNE HWH Duronto @70.997 kmph
~PUNE ADI PUNE Duronto @70.953 kmph
~HWH NDLS HWH Duronto @69.379 kmph
~MMCT HSR MMCT Duronto @68.886 kmph
~LTT PRYJ LTT Duronto @67.445 kmph
~MMCT HAPA MMCT Duronto @65.442 kmph
~HWH YPR HWH Duronto @65.772 kmph
~DEE JAT DEE Duronto @65.544 kmph
~VSKP SC VSKP Duronto @64.935 kmph
~SC LTT SC Duronto @64.597 kmph
~SDAH PURI SDAH Duronto @63.691 kmph
~SHM PNBE SHM Duronto @61.774 kmph
~ERS NZM ERS Duronto @61.022 kmph*
~LTT ERS LTT Duronto @54.935 kmph*
*Monsoon timetable considered
**Pre Covid

Note:
1. Data is calculated using the formula:- {(UP+DN)/2} out of which UP and DN are calculated using speed=(distance/time). Distance has been rounded off to 0 decimal places.
2. Data is calculated using the travel time including halts.
3. Data has been calculated upto 3 decimal places for better accuracy.

No of LHB Trains and Their Percentage in all zones of Indian Railways :

Note = Post Covid Data

CR
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Covid Reserved Trains = 228
No Of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 98
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 130
Percantage of LHB Trains = 42 %

WCR
Total Covid Reserved Trains = 90
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 36
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 54
Percantage of LHB Trains = 40 %

NR
Total Covid Reserved Trains = 312
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 192
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 120
Percantage of LHB Trains = 61 %

WR
Total Covid Reserved Trains = 310
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 195
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 115
Percantage of LHB Trains = 62 %

ECOR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 146
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 72
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 74
Percantage of LHB Trains = 49 %

NWR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 188
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 72
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 116
Percantage of LHB Trains = 38 %

NFR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 144
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 68
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 76
Percantage of LHB Trains = 47 %

ER
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 218
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 82
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 136
Percantage of LHB Trains = 37 %

SR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 283
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 98
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 185
Percantage of LHB Trains = 34 %

SECR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 44
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 24
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 20
Percantage of LHB Trains = 54 %

SER
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 122
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 60
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 62
Percantage of LHB Trains = 49 %

KR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 4
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 4
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 0
Percentage of LHB Trains = 100 %

NER
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 134
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 72
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 62
Percentage of LHB Trains = 53 %

SWR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 158
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 82
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 76
Percentage of LHB Trains = 51 %

SCR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 236
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 66
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 170
Percentage of LHB Trains = 27 %

NCR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 80
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 42
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 38
Percentage of LHB Trains = 52 %

ECR
No of Covid Reserved Trains = 140
No of LHB Covid Reserved Trains = 92
No of ICF Covid Reserved Trains = 48
Percentage of LHB Trains = 65 %

Zone With Highest LHB percentage = KR With 100 %
Zone with Lowest LHB percentage = SCR With 27 %