New website and SMS alerts for rail passengers

The railways have introduced a new website and an SMS service for passengers to get real-time train running information of all trains.

The railways have introduced a new website and an SMS service for passengers to get real-time train running information of all trains.

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The information will be available at www.trainenquiry.com. To avail the SMS service, passengers have to type SPOT and send it to 139.

"We have done away with earlier services that allowed passengers to get train running information through www. simran.in. Those using mobile phones got the information by sending text messages to 9415139139," said a senior official.

"But these two services catered only to 36 selected pair of trains, including Shatabdis, Rajdhanis and Durontos. But the new service will be applicable to all trains," he said.

The satellite imaging for rail navigation or SIMRAN — developed by IIT-Kanpur —had been launched early this year and had to be extended to all major trains in 18 months. The railways also allocated Rs. 121 crore for the project and obtained permission from ISRO to operate the system through satellite. GPS was also being used for the system.

When asked what went wrong with the earlier system, the official said, "We used the SIMRAN project on a trial basis. We have created our own tracking system. We don't need the old one anymore."

Sources in IIT-K said the service was closed because of lack of funds from the railways. On record, IIT-K officials said, "The railways have decided to close our service. Passengers may use Railways' enquiry systems."