Passengers can expect temporary disruptions to the Indian Railways booking after 23:45 hrs starting tonight. Work to commission a new datacentre at Chennai’s Passenger Reservation System (PRS) hub has begun.
Bookings for three zones; Southern Railway, South Central Railway and South Western Railway, are likely to be affected for two nights starting with 28th August 2021. Downtime is scheduled between 23:45 hours and 02:00 hrs.
PRS Downtime Schedule
- From 23:45 hrs of 28-08-2021 to 02:00 hrs of 29-08-2021
- From 23:45 hrs of 29-08-2021 to 02:00 hrs of 30-08-2021
Passengers intending to book tickets should stay clear of the timings above to avoid inconvenience.
Charting Changes
The disruption will also affect the charting of trains leaving on the affected days.
The first Chart for trains originating between 00:00 to 8:00 hours on 29th and 30th Aug 2021 from any station of Southern Railway, South Central Railway and South Western Railway will be prepared 6-7 hours before the scheduled departure of the train, instead of 4 hours which is the normal rule.
Further, the Current Chart for trains originating between 00:00 to 3:00 hours on 29th and 30th Aug 2021, from any station of Southern Railway, South Central Railway and South Western Railway will be prepared 4 hours before the scheduled departure of the train, instead of 30 minutes which is the normal rule.
Indian Railways PRS Datacentres
Indian Railways operates its Passenger Reservation Service and Unreserved Ticketing through 5 datacentres at New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai. The datacentre at Chennai is undergoing changes making disruption to ticketing operations, including on IRCTC online booking, likely.