With the festive season approaching, passengers must carefully enter their boarding and destination stations while booking train tickets online. Often, travellers mistakenly select the wrong boarding point—like booking from Ghaziabad instead of Delhi for a Delhi–Howrah trip. In such cases, updating the boarding point promptly is crucial, as boarding from the wrong station may not be allowed.
Rules for Changing Indian Railways Boarding Stations
Indian Railways advises passengers to understand the rules before changing their boarding station. If the change is made within 24 hours of the train’s departure, no refund is allowed. However, in exceptional cases—such as train cancellation, coach non-attachment, or delays of over three hours—normal refund rules will apply.
A passenger loses all rights to board the train from the initial boarding station if they have altered their boarding location.
The passenger must pay the fare and penalty between the original boarding station and the new one if they are discovered to be traveling without the required authorization.
If the ticket is seized, there is no way to modify the boarding station.
For PNRs using the VIKALP option, changing the boarding station is not permitted.
For I-Ticket, changing the boarding station online is not permitted.
With an existing booked ticket, changing the boarding station is not permitted.
Passengers can switch boarding stations again from the "Booked Ticket History" section if they did so when making their reservation.
How to change boarding station in IRCTC?
Step 1: Enter your username and password to log in.
Step 2: Visit MY ACCOUNT >> My Purchases >> History of Booked Tickets
Step 3: Click the "Change Boarding Point" button after selecting the ticket for which you wish to modify the boarding station.
Step 5: Choose your preferred boarding location from the list of stations along the chosen train route that shows in a pop-up window.
Step 6: The system will ask for confirmation once you select the station; click "OK" to modify your ticket's boarding point.
Step 7: If the change of boarding station is successful, a success alert message will show.
Step 8: The mobile number that was supplied at the time of booking will receive a corresponding SMS regarding the boarding point update.