Do you want to know the fastest way to find a train while booking your tickets online? If Yes, than you would be happy to know that you can do so if you can identify 'colors'. Weird as it may sound, but you can search the right type of train using the new color code scheme introduced by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on their e-Ticketing system.

Have a look at snapshot taken from live railway ticket booking session from irctc next generation site. We took this snapshot when we went to find train between stations

snapshot of train between station with colored rows taken from irctc booking site


As expected, our search for trains returned list of trains with related information details about each train viz(train name, number, travel class available, arrival/departure time, and weekdays on which a train runs). But there was something very interesting which we never saw before. Few rows had a background color other than 'white'. You can see 'pink' color in snapshot above.

While we wanted to proceed with ticket booking, we were curious about these colors. So went about doing research on: "What does the color in booking page of IRCTC means?"

After searching around for a while, we got the answer.

Actually, IRCTC knows that you want to book your tickets fast. To help you out in your endeavor, IRCTC keep introducing new features in their portal. Since selecting a train is one of the most important intermediate steps while booking railway tickets online using 'journey planner', and the one that may take more time than others, IRCTC wants to help you to find the train of right type easily so that you can move forward towards completing the booking process.

Now, there are many types of train Have a look at the train types listed below:
  • Rajdhani
  • Special Tatkal
  • Duronto
  • Garib Rath
  • Special Train
  • Others
Suppose you want to do booking in 'special tatkal' type of  train. How will you find it? 

There can be quite a large number of trains that could be available for your journey towards are particular destination. 

How will you know which train is of which type?

This is where colors will help you. Following picture shows the color and the train type it relates to.

colors on irctc booking page
color scheme for train types used on irctc.co.in



You can see that a blue color refers to a special train while pink color refers to special tatkal train.

Now you know what does the color in booking page of IRCTC means and how you can find train by color on IRCTC booking page.

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