CHENNAI: Amid the frenzied Deepavali travel rush, the IRCTC website crashed around 11 am (October 17) and remained down for nearly 40 minutes, leaving users unable to book Tatkal tickets. To address the issue, Tatkal tickets were made available at railway stations across the country.
During the outage, train ticket bookings and cancellations were suspended for about an hour. The website is now back online, and online Tatkal bookings have resumed, according to a Daily Thanthi report.
Ahead of the Deepavali weekend (Oct 17 to Oct 20), Southern Railway had announced special trains from Chennai to several cities, including Tirunelveli, Nagercoil, Thoothukudi, Sengottai, Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kollam.
With Omni bus fares rising sharply, more travellers, especially families, are opting for trains. As a result, tickets for special trains are selling out within minutes, and the waiting list on several routes has already crossed 100, the report added.
Since train fares remain lower than bus fares, many passengers who missed out on regular or special train tickets are turning to the Tatkal quota, paying an additional fee a day before their journey.