There are millions of people seeking railway information in India and around the world. It is clear from humongous traffic that Indian Railway enquiry website 'indianrail.gov.in' receives per day. Every moment people are searching for information on reserved, unreserved, and suburban trains. People are even querying for fog affected trains.
Given the popularity of railways, many desktop software and mobile applications have been developed in order to easily make rail info accessible to users. There are different applications for checking pnr status, finding train route and schedule, to get the fare for travelling by train between two stations, to show live status of current running train, and other information about railway.
![eRail.in]( "eRail")
Major problem which railway software developers face today is that there is no common database of railway information which can be used to develop a railway application (desktop application or web application) that can retrieve all information queried by a user. Indian Railway, as per policy, does not allow any one outside their organization to maintain a database of railway information. It means that even when people are keen to make apps for customers of railway they cannot do so.
To solve the above problem eRail.in has come up with an API (Application Programming Interface) which can be programmed against to develop a good railway application.
Given the popularity of railways, many desktop software and mobile applications have been developed in order to easily make rail info accessible to users. There are different applications for checking pnr status, finding train route and schedule, to get the fare for travelling by train between two stations, to show live status of current running train, and other information about railway.
Major problem which railway software developers face today is that there is no common database of railway information which can be used to develop a railway application (desktop application or web application) that can retrieve all information queried by a user. Indian Railway, as per policy, does not allow any one outside their organization to maintain a database of railway information. It means that even when people are keen to make apps for customers of railway they cannot do so.
To solve the above problem eRail.in has come up with an API (Application Programming Interface) which can be programmed against to develop a good railway application.
eRail API Explained
The eRail API http://api.erail.in is a service which can be used to get all information related to Indian Railway trains. It works on simple HTTP request. One can make an HTTP request to appropriate API and append it with allowed parameters to get a specific information on railway. All response is sent in JSON format to the client. As of now following APIs are available.eRail.in APIs List
Presented below is the list of available APIs on eRail and the purpose for which they can be used.
- Station List API - To get the result of all the stations with their station code, name, latitude and longitude.
- Trains API - To get trains between two given stations.
- Route API - To get route(s) of given train number. List of all available routes will be returned.
- Full Route API - To get full route of given train number. List of stations in route of train will be displayed, showing all passing stations also.
- Fare API - To get fare for the journey from source station to destination station.
- PNR Status API - To get details of given PNR number.
- Live Status API - To get live running status of the given train.
- Seat Availability API- To get seats availability in given train between given pair of stations in given quota, class and date.
- Coach Composition API - To get coach Composition of a given train.
- Cancelled Trains API - To get list of all cancelled trains on a given date.
- Diverted Trains API - To get list of all diverted trains on a specific date.
- Rescheduled Trains API - To get list of all re-scheduled trains.
- Trains at Station API - To get list of trains at given station withing in given hours.
In order to use above Indian Railway APIs one must register and get an API key. This key is used to identify the application making use of it and it is managed through eRail.in API console. This key is required to be inserted in every request URL to be used for accessing API. As of now maximum 5 requests per second can be made. You can send email at info@erail.in to get your key.
eRail Mobile Apps
Using above API many useful mobile applications have already been developed for the railway users. Users can download it on their phones and get railway updates on the go anytime anywhere. Download the official eRail.in apps now from following links.
- eRail Android app
- eRail Windows App
- eRail Apple iPhone app
These apps also allows user to see refund details of cancelled online reservation and seat map of trains.