Indian Railway Rules : New Railway Rules; Travel without reserved ticket is possible, but ‘these’ rules are mandatory

Indian Railway Rules: There is a very important news for millions of passengers who travel by rail. Indian Railways has made major changes in the rules to ease the journey of passengers and control overcrowding in trains. If you do not have a reserved ticket, you can still complete your journey legally, but this requires understanding the new legal framework of the Railways. The ‘Jan Vishwas Act, 2026’ enacted by the Central Government Sections 137 and 138 of the Internal Railway Act, 1989 have made important amendments.

The minimum penalty for traveling without a ticket is now doubled

As per the new rules, the railways has directly doubled the penalty amount to curb ticketless passengers. Earlier, ticketless travel under Section 137 and 138 of the Railway Act was subject to a minimum fine of Rs 250, which has now been increased to a minimum of Rs 500. This means that if a passenger is found to be traveling without a valid ticket, he will have to pay the full fare for his journey along with this additional penalty of Rs 500. Not only ticketless passengers, but also passengers traveling with wrong ticket, already used ticket or any other type of invalid ticket will be held in the same category and will be charged a minimum fine of Rs 500. Indian Railway Rules

How to complete the journey without a ticket?

If you board a sleeper or AC coach without a valid ticket or only with a general ticket due to sudden circumstances, the railways has provided an official way to complete your journey safely. After boarding the train, instead of waiting for the TTE to come to you for ticket verification, you should approach them yourself and explain your problem. If there are empty seats available in that train, the TTE can make you an official ticket by charging the remaining fare of your journey and the prescribed penalty, which will prevent you from being disembarked from the train. However, in order to control overcrowding in reserved coaches, passengers with waiting list tickets are not allowed to travel in sleeper or AC coaches at all. Indian Railway Rules

Screenshots of tickets on WhatsApp

The railway administration has now taken a very strict step to prevent misuse and fraud of digital tickets. If you RailOne Or if an unreserved ticket has been booked through any other official railway app, it is mandatory to present it in the same mobile phone and open the original app at the time of ticket check.

Ticket screenshot, photo, PDF or forwarded on WhatsApp of the ticket taken by passengers will now be treated as completely ‘invalid’ during inspection. Just by showing the screenshot, the concerned passenger can be treated as ticketless and fined Rs 500 directly. Therefore, it is mandatory that the mobile phone from which the booking is made should be switched on and the companion should have an official government photo ID like Aadhaar card or PAN card. Indian Railway Rules

New rules for waiting list passengers