The IRCTC 'e-catering' service is now alive. In order to get food at your berth in train, just do the following:


  1. Open the IRCTC rail connect app.
  2. In "IRCTC Exclusive" section tap on "Book meal".
  3. Enter 10 digit PNR number of your railway ticket.
  4. Choose items from listed restaurants.
  5. Pay online or pay after food is delivered at your seat by choosing "Cash on Delivery" payment option.
  6. Get food at your seat.

Passengers cal also order meals in train by sending sms message. Payment will be done by passengers after delivery of food on their seat. The article below explains the procedure of how to get meal at the train seat.

Before reading through, we suggest you to also look at the 4 easy ways to order food in train where you'll find more options for getting food inside train. In Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto trains travelers can opt for veg or non veg food at the time of booking tickets online. While in mail/express trains food is either delivered through attached pantry car in train, or passengers have to order food exclusively as explained here.

We all feel hungry, even if we are doing nothing but enjoying a train ride on our reserved seat. It is good that almost every train stops at few railway stations along the way where a good variety of food is available. The stoppage is also long enough where one can order a favorite food item at a stall and then wait for the cooks to prepare and serve the ordered items. But there is still a problem as far as getting food is concerned while traveling.

train food
Yummy paneer pasanda served in rajdhani express


The passenger trains will stop at many stations and provide opportunity to passengers to fill up their empty stomachs. But India is now having many trains which are end to end trains. They don't stop anywhere. In future there will be high speed and bullet trains running on tracks in India and they too are least likely to stop anywhere in between the source and destination stations, and hence the chance of getting food will be even lower then what it is at the present. Some superfast and express trains do halt at handful of stations but still while traveling at night there is a very less chance of getting something fresh to energize oneself. Of course, we are not talking about the food men that wander inside the train. These are employed by railway through IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation).

What if you want any food, veg or non veg, of your choice, and have it served hot and sizzling on your seat at the time you want it to get served! Is it possible? Yes, is the answer. You can indeed have fresh food served to you inside the train. The service is bought by the IRCTC, a well known railway subsidiary which handles catering and online ticketing services of Indian Railway. Once a person orders his choice of food items, Irctc will arrange it to fulfill the order with the help of hotels, restaurants, and other food suppliers tied to them. At a particular station a waiter would actually come at your seat and handover a packet of food to you.

Clearly you are delighted with the information. Now you must be desperate to know how to actually order meals in trains. Just call 1800-134-139 (Toll Free) and 0120-4383892-99 or SMS Meal <your pnr number> and send it to 139.

Apart from the above service there are many private companies which are in the business of serving food to travelers during their journey. There services have been reported to be satisfactory too. It is advisable that you get your meals from reputed food serving companies only. Your health is of great importance and you would not want to fall ill while traveling by consuming the rotten food.

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