Which Indian trains have shorter booking period?

Question

Most of the long distance trains in India have bookings opened 90 days before the train ride. There are some that have a shorter period available.

Which exact Indian trains have reservations open only 30 day prior to departure?

Answer 1

From Seat61:

Indian long-distance trains open for bookings 90 days before departure. Some shorter-distance inter-city trains open less than 90 days ahead, for example Delhi-Kalka & Kalka-Simla generally open 30 days ahead.

There may not be a hard rule which trains fall into the 90 or 30 day category. If you are interested in a particular train, you can try to book it online 60 days in the future and see whether you can book it. You can try cleartrip or the official Indian railway site

Interestingly enough cleartrip allows me to book 'Delhi to Kalka' in April 2012 (88 days from now), so the 30 days mentioned above may no longer be correct.

Answer 2

According to the Indian Railways site

Advance reservations are made generally up to 90 days in advance for all classes and all trains. The period of advance reservation (ARP) is exclusive of the day of departure of the train.

At intermediate stations where the train arrives on the following day, such reservations can be done 91 days in advance of date of journey from the intermediate station. ARP is in relation to the date of journey from train originating station. In case of some Inter-city day trains, the ARP is less.

You can get a partial list (though not official) of Inter city trains from Wiki

Answer 3

You have to be very specific where you are going. In some parts of India trains are overloaded if it is some particular time (reasons: cheap and fast). Some of the routes are always full in 89 days advance (particularly long routes metropolitan trains.)

There is an Tatkal scheme (quick time reservation) which allows you to book the seats in 2 days advance. Tickets under this scheme get over in a very short period of time (from an hour to 5-6 hours), so you have to be very sharp and login to http://www.irctc.co.in/ at sharp 8:00 o clock (The time when reservation starts) and book your tickets. Expect long time in booking tickets at morning time. If the pages are coming slow let them come by that speed, (DO NOT REFRESH , or you have to start it again.)

There are some travel agents who can book the tickets for you with some extra cost (Normally INR 450 per person). You have to browse the local listing for the same (go to http://www.sulekha.com) to find the listing of those agents.