Everything to know about Indian Railways' RAC tickets
What's the story
The Indian Railways broadly offers three types of tickets, including confirmed tickets, Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) ones, and waitlisted tickets.
Given the high demand for railway tickets, getting confirmed tickets might not be possible every time.
If booking requests surpass a train's accommodation capacity, a booking could be made under the RAC or waitlisted categories.
Here are some rules and regulations for RAC tickets.
Seats, possibility
Number of RAC seats; possibility of making journey
Number of RAC seats: In normal express trains, the total berths under RAC quota are 71. Since each of these berths shall be shared by two people, the number of RAC seats in such a train would typically be 142.
Journey: One can be sure of making a journey in more than 95% of RAC cases, though they will have to share the berth.
Shift, categories
Getting moved to waitlisted; categories in RAC tickets
Shift to waitlisted: Though the chances are rare, an RAC ticket might be moved to waitlisted if some coaches are unavailable due to issues like technical glitches, leading to a fall in the final number of available RAC berths.
Categories: There's an Emergency Quota (EQ) in RAC train bookings. These are tickets booked by VIPs, railway staff, etc., which couldn't somehow be confirmed.
Few more rules
Few more rules about RAC tickets
In the majority of cases, RAC passengers are allotted side lower berths. But if confirmed seat cancelations are high, upper or middle berths may also be allotted.
Most RAC berths are offered on sharing basis. One might get a solo berth if the other passenger gets ticket confirmation at the last minute.
Ticket status shows two RAC numbers, i.e. initial and current RAC numbers.