How to Buy a Ticket for the Ooty Toy Train When It is Fully Booked _ Sam and Sheena Cycle

25/07/2015 How to buy a ticket for the Ooty Toy Train when it is fully booked | Sam and Sheena Cycle

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CYCLING FROM HERE TO VIETNAM

How to buy a ticket for the Ooty Toy Train whenit is fully booked

How to get a ticket for the Ooty Toy train:

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Riding the Nilgiri Mountain Railway would be a highlight on any visit to India, even if youhave limited interest in trains! The 7.10 journey is pushed by an old steam train up some of thesteepest tracks in India, the 100 year old route passes through superb scenery as it climbs up to

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https://bearandbeardbike.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/img_1345.jpg



the cool air of Ooty hillstation. You pass huge soaring mountains, waterfalls, big cliffs andpossibly elephants as you slowly snake up to 2000 meters. The only problem you are likely tohave is buying a ticket! The train is small; only three carriages are attached to the train so thereare not many seats!

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(https://bearandbeardbike.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/01290232.jpg)The early start hurts!

How to buy a ticket for the Nilgiri mountain railway:

First you can use the Indian Railways Website (http://www.indianrail.gov.in) to checkavailability. Unfortunately, when we looked all seats were booked for a minimum of twomonths! You could buy a waiting list ticket, but you would have to arrive at the station in themorning and hope that enough people have decided to not turn up before you know if youhave a seat – hardly a good way of securing a seat on the journey! Plus if you are not Indian youmay have difficulties actually buying a ticket through the Indian Railways website (they do notaccept foreign cards as payment).

Another option is by buying your ticket through the Indian booking company – Cleartrip(http://www.cleartrip.com). The problem with this is that you can only purchase first classtickets (still very cheap at about 50 Rupees each – less than $1!) and you need an Indian mobilenumber (there is a way around this, see booking train tickets online in India on ‘man in seat 61(http://www.seat61.com/India.htm#book%20‑%20from%20outside)’). Cleartrip only charge a 20Rupee booking fee and you can use foreign credit cards. First class tickets are also regularlybooked up well in advance, we would have had to wait two months!

http://www.seat61.com/India.htm#book%20-%20from%20outside

http://www.cleartrip.com/

http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

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How to buy a ticket for the Ooty toy train on the day:

It is possible to buy tickets on the day of departure as Indian Railways retain approximately 21tickets to sell each morning. In order to have any chance of buying one of these tickets then youHAVE to be at the station EARLY! Really early! Really really early!

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We were advised to arrive by 4am but we didn’t make it until 4.15 – we were 8th and 9th in theline. One platform has a specific queuing area for this departure, it consists of two metalbarriers on the platform the train departs from. It is near the station masters office and has asign hanging above it indicating that it is for the Mettapulyam – Ooty train. Don’t wait at thebooking office outside of the station or the other platform in the station! The station mastersoffice has an entrance on both platforms, don’t wait on the wrong side or you won’t be able tobuy a ticket (this happened to someone on the day we bought ours, they sat on the wrong sidefor two hours and missed out!).

(https://bearandbeardbike.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/01290238.jpg)The platform with queuing area on the right.

If you arrive and there are less than 15 or so people in front of you then you are very likely to beable to buy a ticket. If there are more than 15 then hang around and hope for the best! Allmembers of a group HAVE to be there waiting with you, i.e. you can’t send one member of thefamily at 4 am to buy tickets for 4 people (this was strictly enforced which is good, otherwiseyou would have no idea if the person at the front of the queue was going to buy 10 tickets!).People who were trying to buy tickets for additional people were turned away. Stay in thequeue and don’t take any crap from people trying to push in.

At about 5.30am the station master arrives and makes everyone get into a single file line. Hemakes sure no one tries to push in and turns anyone away who is trying to buy tickets forpeople who are not present. You are then given a token for how many people are present in




your group. For this it was two.

One person from each group is then sent to the ticket office outside of the station, this opened atapproximately 6am. Tickets could be bought for second class only (15 Rupees each). You thenhave to get back to the line, wait for everyone to return before you are shown onto the trainwhere you wait.

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You have little choice about where you sit as you are marched onto the train in single file. It ispot luck if you manage to get a window seat, if you have a choice then the left side when facingthe direction of travel will give you the best views!

You are made to sit on the train for a while, I think this is to prevent other passengers arrivingthat already have tickets from sitting in this section of the train. After about 30 minutes ofsitting in the train you are allowed out to wonder about, have a coffee and check out the trainthat will be pushing you up the mountain!






Taking a bicycle on the Ooty toy train:

(https://bearandbeardbike.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/img_1386.jpg)The baggage car

We couldn’t find any information about this prior to travelling, and even when we asked at thestation the first person we spoke to said it was not possible – This is not true!

The train has a luggage/baggage cart, in order to put your bike onto it then you have to visit theparcel office in the station. First go through the process to buy a ticket, when you have yourticket then you will have to wait for a while until the parcel office opens.

We have a lot of bags on our bikes and we left them on for the journey. There is very little roomin the train carriage itself so instead of imposing our excess baggage on everyone else we leftthem on the bike. The parcel office is on the platform and opened at about 6/6.30, you just needto fill in a few forms and make a small payment (50 rupees for 2x bikes).

When this was done I wanted to ensure our bikes went on and were put somewhere where theywouldn’t fall/have things on top of them but luggage handlers almost race you to your bike orwrestle it away from you/offer to do it so you think they are being kind. The office is less than





10 meters from the train so it is no problem to do it yourself, the baggage guys ask for a‘loading’ change if they even touch your bike – we refused any payment as we didn’t ask fortheir help and they had insisted they push them.

The baggage section of the train could comfortably fit our bikes and is locked before the traindeparts. We checked on them at the half way point when there is a 40 minute break (it wasopened to unload some boxes).

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With a ticket and your bikes on board (if you have one!) you can sit and look forward to thestart of your journey!





One response to “How to buy a ticket for the Ooty ToyTrain when it is fully booked”

1. Pingback: Big Pictures ‑ The Nilgiri Mountain Railroad ‑ Our Life Unfolded∙

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How to Buy a Ticket for the Ooty Toy Train When It is Fully Booked _ Sam and Sheena Cycle

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