The IRCTC website and Rail Connect app were reported to be unavailable on Tuesday, disrupting train ticket bookings and PNR status checks for passengers travelling during the festival season. Users attempting to proceed with bookings were shown the message, “We are experiencing high load- Please retry”.
The disruption was reported from Tuesday morning and continued across the IRCTC app, website and Rail Connect platform by Tuesday afternoon, according to Jagran – New Delhi. The report said passengers were unable to complete the booking process because of heavy server load.
The outage came during a period of high railway demand, with passengers travelling home after Diwali and Bhai Dooj and others trying to book journeys for the Chhath festival. Many travellers were attempting to make last-minute arrangements, increasing their dependence on the online railway reservation system.
The disruption also affected passengers seeking to check the status of tickets they had already booked. While the booking process could not be completed for many users, the inability to access PNR information created a separate problem for travellers trying to confirm their journey details.
The affected services are central to the Indian Railways’ digital ticketing process. The IRCTC website and Rail Connect app are used by passengers to search for trains, select available services, make payments and access booking information. When these channels become unavailable during peak demand, passengers may have limited time to secure seats on popular routes.
The report said the screen displayed a high-load message when users attempted to move forward with a booking. It also stated that the Indian Railways had not issued an official response at the time of publication. No explanation for the reported disruption, its duration or the number of affected users was provided in the available material.
The timing of the interruption was particularly significant for passengers travelling on routes connected to northern India and Bihar, where demand rises around the Chhath period. The report said several passengers were facing difficulties because they had not been able to obtain tickets in time. It did not provide route-wise data, cancellation figures or information on whether offline reservation counters were experiencing similar pressure.
Indian Railways had arranged special trains on various routes to manage the festive travel rush, according to the report. However, those services also depend on passengers being able to access reservation information and complete bookings through available channels.
The incident highlights the operational importance of railway booking platforms during seasonal travel peaks. For passengers, the immediate issue was not only access to a website or app but the ability to plan journeys, confirm reservations and reach their destinations during a period when demand is unusually concentrated.
The next steps depend on the restoration of the affected IRCTC services and an official explanation from the railway authorities on the cause, duration and resolution of the high-load problem.
