My score is 0 out of 6 attempts. Counting the attempts that I can remember. Even if I add the attempts I can’t remember, the score will remain 0.

It might be embarrassing for some to admit that they have never successfully booked a tatkal ticket on IRCTC, the ticketing and catering firm of Indian Railways (IR). For me, it’s not. For me, it’s evidence that the tatkal system is broken (or rigged), a fact that is general knowledge in India. (If you’re not from India, the Tatkal Scheme by Indian Railways is a type of emergency ticketing program meant for last-minute travellers to book a journey on any long-distance passenger train in India. Tatkal tickets are only available a day prior to your proposed journey. “Tatkal” means “immediate” or “instant” in Hindi. Naturally, tatkal tickets have limited availability and are priced at least 0.3x than regular tickets.)

It’d been a while since I attempted booking a tatkal ticket. Until an office colleague, way younger than me and assumedly more tech-savvy, suggested that I give it a try when I discussed my waitlisted train tickets from Mumbai to Bhopal recently. Apparently, the tatkal scheme is “less rigged” now, he told me, as he manages to snag them almost every time he wishes to travel back to his family to Rajkot. To which I suggested that maybe it’s because Gujarat is a crucial state for business and businesspeople of Maharashtra (read: Mumbai), a reason why India’s first bullet train project (paywalled) will connect Mumbai and Ahmedabad. And there are plenty of trains that ply between the state, so getting a single seat in any of them is easier than, say, getting lucky on a Mumbai-Goa overnight train or a 24-hour Mumbai-Ernakulam journey, even if you try to book 60 days in advance, the standard period when IRCTC opens up tickets for all long-distance trains.

My colleague was surprised when I showed him my tatkal scorecard using my fingers. He insisted I give it a try this time because I anyway had nothing to lose and so I did. Here are two error messages I got on the RailOne app when I sat down a few minutes to 10 AM on the day before my scheduled journey:

1. “Unable to process request! 0.bdf33344.4443323111.18629a33 Client IP: <redacted>”^[1]There’s a Reddit thread from April 2026 about this exact error message.
2. “Request timed out! Please check your internet connection.” – This came up seconds after I tapped on the “Available 49” button during the tatkal-booking journey. I had logged in seconds ago.

These are novelty. During my past attempts, on the IRCTC Rail Connect app, I would usually get logged out or see some random error message that tried its best to conceal the purported rigging of the system. This time, it’s almost looking like IRCTC is not even trying to conceal the monkey business it’s allegedly doing or allowing registered agents to conduct.

Now I understand that India’s travelling population constantly overwhelms Indian Railways but experiencing a new error message thanks to IRCTC every time a common man tries to book tatkal tickets makes it rather difficult to accept any excuse other than the system being rigged for whatever gain or purpose.

This has been spoken about and discussed countless times by other people, but I thought I’ll just record it in here should IRCTC decide to listen to yours truly, a random shareholder.

As for a solution to this tatkal conundrum, all I can suggest is what you must already know:

• Consider booking in advance and cancelling later than waiting and booking RAC or waitlisted tickets (PQWL or RNWL, what’s your poison?), or worse attempt the tatkal scheme. After all, Indian Railways recovers only 57% of travel cost on average through ticket sales, a figure that has stayed the same since I was at least a decade younger.^[2]According to an unreliable source, IR started printing the statement “IR recovers only 57% of cost of travel on an average” since around 2016. I wonder why that 57% figure has not increased or decreased or why the Indian Railways is even looking to make a profit.
• Consider flying if you’re considering tatkal or premium tatkal, which will have a better cost-benefit outcome than when you compare costs of flight and regular train tickets.

I eventually called off my Bhopal plans. I’m writing this while I’m discussing with my wife a trip to Hyderabad which will also involve a train journey for which tickets are already showing as the dreaded three-word letter: R-A-C.