Rail booking to go offline on Sunday
Reservation systems in the the southern region to remain closed from 3 pm to 10 pm.
Hyderabad: Railway passengers are in for a tough time on Sunday, November 17 as all passenger reservation systems in the the southern region (South Central, South Western and Southern Railway Zones) will remain closed from 3 pm to 10 pm, to make place for a disaster recovery drill.
Online reservations, cancellations, all enquiries on 139 (railway call centre), advance reservation of tickets, current day bookings, cancellation of tickets, refunds, e-ticketing on IRCTC website, checking reservation charts online and other enquiry services will remain shut.
Passengers can get these services manually at the stations or can use the reservation services before the system is shut down, railway sources said.
The disaster recovery mock drill is the first-ever such exercise being conducted for ensuring the safety of the core server of the South Central, South Western and Southern Railways. The server is located at Chennai.
About one and a half years ago, a replica of the core server was installed at the Secunderabad railway station in order to handle the main functions of the Chennai server in case of an emergency.
As part of the mock drill on Sunday, the Chennai server will be shut down and the replica server at the Secunderabad station will be pressed into action to take the load.
Fictitious transactions will be made from the Secunderabad server to assess how well it is equipped to handle the emergency situation and how capably it replaces the core server. This will also be the first-ever mock drill to check the disaster preparedness of the new server.
Cancellation, refund of Passenger Reservation System tickets purchased at counters (not e-tickets) will be done at manual counters at all stations. The railways asked passengers to plan their ticketing and enquiry activities in advance.