Friday, July 1, 2011

Railways PNR Status | Indian Railways PNR Status | [How to] Find Railway current PNR Status | Railway PNR Status Checking

Difinition of PNR

A PNR is an abbreviated form of Passenger Name Record (PNR) in the travel Industry. It is a record of the itinerary for a passenger or group of passengers (travelling together) in the database of a Computer Reservation System (CRS).

A PNR status is widely used term in the travel industry including railways and airlines industry. The PNR was initially introduced by airlines for exchanging reservation information in case of passengers who require flights of multiple airlines to complete their journey. The standards for interline messaging of PNR is defined by IATA and ATA.

The introduction of PNRs was originally intended for air travel. However, its usage has now spread across the bookings of railways tickets, hotels, tours, car rentals, etc.

Indian Railways PNR

Indian Railways issues a 10 digit number written on the top left corner of the ticket in combination of digits and characters. This is known as Passenger Name Record abbreviated as PNR. It is an important number which keeps the record of the travelers in the database of Computer Reservation System (CRS). This number could be used to find the latest reservation status on the Indian Railways website free of charge. Train reservation list is being updated 24*7 in a real time manner in the database. Indian Railway website also provides various other means of finding booking state by SMS or by Rail Phone. 

Alternative Methods to Find PNR Status

Apart from using IRCTC website for finding PNR status, one could also check his reservation status through SMS. While seeking information on PNR status, one simply has to write PNR (give space) (type PNR number) and SMS to 139. The benefit of the SMS service is that passengers can access information even on the move, the official said for instance, if a passenger wants information about his train running behind schedule and the expected arrival at the destination, he can type the station code or station name along with his train number and SMS to 139.