Indian Railways form a major component of transportation system in India. Most Indians travel across the nation to tourist places in trains. Internet has helped a lot in the process of booking train tickets online, planning train journeys, checking PNR status online, etc. Some of the top Android apps for Indian Railways travelers providing all such valuable rail information are discussed in this article.

Indian Rail Android Apps help to track the railways time-table for trains, track ticket reservation status, Tatkal availability of train tickets, etc. With this article, I plan to list down all features of the best railway Android apps at one place. This will help those Android users who frequently search for an effective travel app for planning their train journey to Indian tourist destinations.

IRCTC Connect

IRCTC website is probably the most accessed website for online train ticket booking in India. Their official Indian Railways app is IRCTC Connect which utilizes the same login credentials as for the IRCTC website i.e. one-step login to existing users. Alternatively, you can also create new account specifically for this official train ticket booking railway app.

The app provides most basic features like searching and booking train tickets online, viewing ticket status and cancelling booked rail tickets, etc. It also empowers the users with upcoming journey alerts. This IRCTC mobile app restores (or retains) the recently added passenger details, thereby making the ticket booking process a tad easier for frequent travelers. This app is expected to receive plenty of additional features and functionality in near future.

One can download IRCTC Connect Android App from the ‘Travel and Local’ category on Google Play Store at: Free Install IRCTC Connect App for Android

National Train Enquiry System (NTES) Android Rail Application

NTES app was perhaps the earliest official mobile rail app of Indian Railways. This app developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) enables users to keep track of the expected arrival time and departure time of their trains along with current train status as part of its ‘spot your train’ feature.

This app is well-known because of its ability to provide real-time status information for Indian trains and rail queries. With features like ‘Trains between stations’, you can check all possible available trains for traveling between two stations of your choice. It also provides information to queries about diverted trains or rescheduled trains. Of course, the app provides other basic features like train schedules, cancelled trains information, etc.

The best part about using this free NTES railway app is that it doesn’t contain any in-app ads and is extremely light-weight. You can download this app from Google Play Store under category ‘Travel & Local’ at: Free Download NTES Railway App for Android

Ixigo Indian Rail App

This is the official Rail info app of Ixigo.com travel planner website. It provides most of the information required to plan a train journey in India and also execute it. It allows you to check the trains for your destination, train ticket availability, etc. You can book tickets on IRCTC from within this Ixigo app for all your train journeys.

This train travel app has good features like live Train Running status in India, PNR status tracker along with IRCTC mobile train ticket booking facility. Using this app, you can easily know about seat availability, schedule of your train, live train status, arrival time, departure time, offline train routes, etc. The additional functionality is that Ixigo app even provides you with hotel stay options at Indian locations that you will cover during your train journey.

You can install this app on Google Play Store under category ‘Travel & Local’ at: Free Download Ixigo Indian rail app

Rail Yatri Train Info App

This smartphone application for trains is provided by Railyatri.in website. Key features include GPS-based live Train enquiries (inclusive of map view), PNR Status Update (along with ticket confirmation prediction), train time-tables and 1-touch home card for information about upcoming train on the routes you travel often.

The ‘smart trip detector’ is another innovative feature of this app that automatically detects your upcoming trips based on SMS confirmation received from IRCTC after your ticket booking is done. It probably maintains the largest database of trains (reserved, unreserved or suburban) running in Indian rail network. This Rail Yatri mobile app uses its internal train tracking system for real-time status updates about trains.

Apart from the regular train app features, this one has a very innovative feature called ‘Rail Wisdom’. Using this, you can get valuable information (like local bus info from station, nearby internet cyber cafe, etc.) about the railway station you are currently halting at.So, while traveling to any station for the first time, you can utilize this amazing feature to get immediate information about it that could prove useful to you or your travel companions.

One can download this rail app from Google Play Store at: Free Install Rail Yatri App for Android

A regular train traveler or a new train traveler in India will not have to look beyond the above mentioned popular railway apps for Android devices (phones or tablets). These railway Android apps are best in terms of design, interface and ease of use. Please share your experience of using any of the above mentioned train applications!