Representing India’s national railway system, Indian Railways operates the fourth-largest railway network in the world with routes spread across more than 68,000 km. You can visit almost every city and town in India using the rail route. There are luxury trains as well as passenger and local coaches for travellers. You have the ultra-fast Vande Bharat Express, the iconic Rajdhani Express, and others to travel with. Though Indian Railways was founded in the year 1845, it was incorporated as a public limited company in 1999 only. Did you know about that? Well, here we are going to list down some incredible facts about IRCTC that would surely astonish you.

• Maintained by the Center for Railway Information Systems, IRCTC is one of the most frequented websites in the world with a total user base of about 4 crore passengers. On average about 18k new registrations are done every day on the website. The website can supposedly handle a booking of about 7200 tickets per minute.

• On the day of the launch of IRCTC, only 27 tickets were sold. However, as of now, IRCTC sells more than 5 lakh tickets to passengers across all states and union territories every day. Well, that’s quite an achievement!

• A user is usually allowed to book only up to 12 tickets using the IRCTC website or train app. However, if your IRCTC account is linked to your Aadhar Card, you are eligible to book a maximum of 24 tickets per month. Get going now!

• Did you ever wonder why the captcha while booking normal tickets is different from the captcha that you usually fill in while booking tatkal tickets? Well, if not, then let us tell you that the captcha of tatkal tickets generated is complex so that the website can reduce traffic and handle it efficiently during tatkal booking.

• You can save an amount of at least 150 INR if you book your flight tickets using the IRCTC travel app because IRCTC charges only about 50 INR convenience fee per booking, while other booking platforms like Ixigo charge more than 200 INR convenience fee per transaction.

• If you are a solo female traveller and are worried about your seating on the train, then you need not worry. The algorithm of IRCTC is set in such a way that you will never be the only female in a compartment. The Indian railways will always assign you a seat around a female passenger only.

• Tejas Express, launched in 2017, is a semi-high-speed train in India and is the first private train in India to start its operations. While other trains operate under Indian Railways, Tejas Express operates under IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation).

• IRCTC is one of the few companies that have been profitable and debt-free since the beginning. It registers a profit of about 40% every year on the revenue generated.

• IRCTC services are no longer restricted to booking train tickets and meals, or Rail Neer water. It has extended its operations to booking hotels, resorts, flight tickets, bus tickets, tour packages, luxury trains, medical tourism, and cruise services. However, most people often use other travel apps like MakeMyTrip for hotel booking and also sometimes to book train tickets.

• As of now, IRCTC is the only company that is authorised by Indian Railways to provide passengers with catering services, railway tickets, drinking water, and other such facilities inside the trains as well as at railway stations.

If you find any issues booking your train tickets with IRCTC, then you can also download apps like MakeMyTrip to book train tickets and get incredible bank offers and promotional discounts. Also, you can get a 3X refund if your waitlisted ticket doesn’t get confirmed after booking with MakeMyTrip.