Booking a rail ticket through the passenger reservation system or through a travel agent is passe.

Next time you plan to undertake a journey on the 151-year old transport system, try out some of the niche ways introduced by the Railways to get a ticket.

Your ticket is now just a phone call away. Tele-banking has become more attractive than ever before. While State Bank of India has taken the lead, ICICI Bank, HDFC and UTI Bank are also willing to book e-tickets for their customers.

The bank will book the ticket on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation website, obliterating the need for the beneficiaries to log on to the Net.

The facility of booking tickets on the Internet is currently available in 67 cities and plans are afoot to extend the same to Shillong, Saharanpur, Bareilly and 200 other small towns by the close of the year. Online booking can be done on the website www.irctc.co.in.

The Railways claim it to be the biggest e-commerce website in Asia and among the fastest growing in the Asia Pacific region.

IRCTC delivers the ticket at your home through courier service at a nominal charge of Rs 40 for sleeper class tickets and Rs 60 for AC travel.

The mode and amount of payment for this facility depends on the bank patronised by you.

Master/Visa charge 1.8 per cent of the total transaction value for credit card transactions while ICICI Bank has a fee of 0.5 per cent for direct debit transactions.

Citi Bank, HDFC Bank and IDBI Bank charge Rs 10 for direct debit transactions.

While UTI Bank provides the service free of cost. Global Trust Bank and Bank of Punjab have also decided to get into the e-booking business.

Those who do not have access to the net or do not transact through the bank call centres, could get their tickets through their hand-held phone.

Come October, R-world, the Internet getaway of the Reliance India Moblie, will be linked to the IRCTC server.

Service providers like Hutch, have already made available the facility of SMS alerts about train schedules, seat availability etc.

In Mumbai, daily commuters on the local trains can buy their monthly season tickets through the Automated Teller Machines also. The process is set to become more convenient with a soon-to-be unveiled recharge coupon, akin to the one available for pre-paid cards for mobile phones.

The Unreserved Ticketing System is now available in important stations on the Amritsar-New Delhi-Varanasi network of Northern Railways.

Right now tickets can be booked three days in advance for any destination and not necessarily from the originating station.

Efforts are on to extend the validity period to thirty days and the facility will very soon be made more widely available.

The State Bank of India facility, termed 'e-RAIL', allows the bank's Internet banking customers to make online bookings. SBI has over 500 Internet banking branches at 70 centres.