Railways launches National Train Enquiry System for Android phone users

Indian Railways has launched a National Train Enquiry System (NTES) application for users of Android operating system helping them to get more detailed information on trains using their Android smart phones.

A service provided by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) app is available as free download on the Google India Play Store.

The new utility comes with a number of useful features to help passengers on their train journeys.

"With this launch, it has now become easier for the public to get information on expected arrival and departure timings of a particular train and other related information for the benefit of rail passengers," a senior railway ministry official said.

The features include locating trains through 'Spot Your Train' thanks to its ability to provide time and location details of any train at a given time, vis-a-vis its 'scheduled time' and 'actual time' of arrival as well as departure, and even giving an alert if there's a delay.

The NTES app has another cool feature called 'Live Station', which lets passengers enter the name of the station where they can a get a list of trains that can be availed of to reach their destination within, say, the next 2 hours or 4 hours.

The 'Train Schedule' feature gives detailed station-by-station information about any particular train, which includes a list of stations it will be halting at as well as the arrival and departure times at each of these stations, including the distance (in kilometers) to each station.

The app also offers information on 'Cancelled Trains,' 'Rescheduled Trains' and 'Diverted Trains.'

NTES app for Android can be downloaded through a link. CRIS, an IT wing of the Railways, also offers a Windows Phone version of NTES, which it launched for Windows 8 platform in August.