A senior Railway official said that now rail users can get information on expected arrival and departure timings of a particular train on their mobile phones besides tracking its position on a real time basis. Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the information and technology arm of railways, has launched a new mobile application which can be used for various enquiries including train timings.

He said that CRIS has enhanced the train enquiry system by developing the mobile app and a desktop application on Windows 8 platform for train enquiries with support from Microsoft.

The official said that National Train Enquiry System (NTES) is railways' back-end system which provides information to the public about train schedules on a near real time basis through various interfaces like nationwide unique rail enquiry number 139, website (www.trainenquiry.com), mobile interfaces, touch screens, enquiry counters and display boards at stations. An interface of NTES website along with a mobile version of it was launched in September 2013 earlier which has proved to be quite useful for train passengers.

Among the many features of the new mobile app is the 'spot your train' feature which offers information such as its current position, likely time of arrival and departure at a particular station.

The 'Train Schedule' feature provides complete schedule of a train with all stoppages enroute and its scheduled arrival/departure at the station, distance and day count. In "Trains between Stations" query, one can find out the list of all types of trains available between any 2 stations on railway network. The mobile App also has "Cancelled Trains" option which displays all trains marked as cancelled.

It displays trains which are cancelled through the entire route as well as trains which are cancelled on partial route. Besides, it also provides features for query on rescheduled and diverted trains.

The App has been launched for Windows 8.0 phones and will be further developed for other mobile platforms.