Now buy your railway tickets through ATMs

After setting up the first railway call centre here to improve railway-passengers interface, the South Western railways is planning to introduce other customer-friendly services like providing tickets through ATMs and making available information on the actual running time of trains on mobile phones.

"We are working on providing tickets to passengers through ATMs and the trials will start in another couple of weeks," B B Modgil, chief mechanical engineer of South Western railways said.

However, officials said there are still some irritants as the aim is to have a "single gateway" for the passengers though they might be possessing ATMs of different banks.

"Talks are on with several banks in this regard," they said adding the service will mostly help the daily commuters.

"Also, if a passenger wants to cancel a ticket procured in this manner, he should be easily able to do it," said Anwar Hussain, divisional commissioner, Bangalore. The ticket menu will allow passengers to buy tickets for 15 days, a season ticket or any other according to his need.