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How this was made

Every number in an answer, on the map and on the cards comes from a public source, and each one is labelled with that source and its date. Where the newest data is not yet published, the page says so instead of guessing.

Sources

How a train is found

• You can search any Census district under its name today (Gurugram, Prayagraj, Bengaluru), the big cities that span several districts (Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad), or any station in the timetable. Old names (Gurgaon, Allahabad, Bangalore) find the same place. Leh and Kargil are listed under Ladakh, and Telangana districts under Telangana.
• A place's stations are those in its district, plus any within 35 km of the district's centre.
• Direct trains first. For every train, we board at its last stop in your start place before it reaches your destination, and get off at the first stop there. Up to three of the quickest are shown.
• One change. With no direct train, we look for two trains that meet at the same station, or at two stations within 12 km of each other in the same town. A change needs at least 45 minutes, or 2 hours across town. The quickest total, including the wait, is shown.
• No station, or no useful one. If a place has no station in the timetable, or its own stations connect to nothing useful (a hill line, for example), we try the busier stations nearby, up to 150 km further on. Road kilometres count against a station, so a nearer one wins unless a farther one saves real time. The answer names the station and its straight-line distance. Ladakh, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have no railway yet, and the answer says so.
• Trains at a Glance lists principal stops only. A small station may be served by trains that are not shown, so always check on NTES or IRCTC.
• Days of running are those printed in the timetable for the train's starting station. For a change, check that both trains run on the days you need.

Why one figure is from 2011

The Census is the only official count of how many people from one state live in another. The last one was in 2011. Census 2027 counts the population in February–March 2027, and its migration tables will follow later. Until then, the answer and the card show the 2011 count with its date, next to the newer 2023 rail-travel figure, which shows where people travel but does not count residents.

What the night map shows

• Each light is one train from Trains at a Glance 2026, moving between the stations it lists. One clock day plays in 60 seconds.
• Trains at a Glance lists principal stops, so a train is drawn in straight lines between them, not along the exact track.
• Weekly trains are shown on every day of the loop, so the map shows the whole network at once rather than one particular day.
• Local passenger and suburban trains are not in Trains at a Glance and are not shown.

Reading the official timetable

Trains at a Glance is published as 97 PDF tables. A program reads every table and checks every train; the full counts are in report.json.

• 2,626 of 3,576 trains are read and pass every check. The rest are left out rather than shown wrongly.
• A train is left out if its times run backwards, if its parts in different tables do not join up, if fewer than two of its stations can be identified, or if it would need to travel faster than 160 km/h or take more than 90 hours.
• Station names are matched to station codes using the timetable's own index, then the station list, including stations renamed since 2016 (for example Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, KSR Bengaluru, Virangana Laxmibai Jhansi).
• Cross-check: for the 596 trains that start and end at the same stations in an independent 2016 timetable, the median 2026 journey time is 0.99 times the 2016 one, and 97.8% are within 25% of it.

Special trains

• Only trains announced on an official railway website are included, each linked to its notice. Trains seen only on news or booking sites are left out, so the real number is higher.
• Special trains run for a holiday rush and are added season by season. An answer lists the specials still running (by their last date) from near your start to your home state. On the map, a special counts as "heading home" when it leaves a big work hub (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Kerala) for a state people travel home to.
• Specials with published times move on the map. Those without times are drawn as faint routes and never animated.

The answer and the card

• The train is found as described above, from Trains at a Glance 2026.
• Fares are estimated for the part of each train you ride, as explained under Explore mode below. For a trip with a change, the two fares are added, for the classes both trains have.
• Special trains counts the verified specials still running from near your start to your home state.
• Rail travel (2023) is the share of unreserved long-distance train trips starting in the home state that ended in the city's state. It is a share of trips, not a number of people.
• People (2011) is the Census count of people living in your start district (or city) whose previous home was in that state, for every reason (work, marriage, study, family). Telangana was part of Andhra Pradesh in 2011, so Telangana homes are counted as "undivided Andhra Pradesh".

Explore mode

• Satellite imagery is Sentinel-2 cloudless 2024 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. State and district outlines are drawn on top from the Survey of India and Census 2011 boundaries.
• Train, station, district and state details are calculated from the same sources as the rest of the site. Station names follow the 2026 timetable's station index where it lists the station.
• Distance is estimated: the straight lines between a train's listed stops, scaled by a factor fitted on trains whose official rail distance is known. Half of trains fall within 3% of the official distance and 80% within 6%.
• Fares are estimated from the official fare tables in Trains at a Glance 2026 (basic fares w.e.f. 1 July 2025), adding the reservation fee, the superfast charge, GST on AC classes and the 2 paise/km increase of 26 December 2025, rounded up to the next ₹5. The range covers the uncertainty in distance and in whether the superfast charge applies. Checked against real fares: the Karnataka Express and Sanghamitra Express fares fall inside their ranges in every class.
• Fares leave out meals (charged extra on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto), Tatkal, demand-based pricing and concessions, and are not shown for trains with their own fare rules (Vande Bharat Sleeper, Amrit Bharat, Jan Shatabdi and others). Always check the fare on IRCTC before booking.

Privacy

The site has no accounts and stores nothing about you. Visits are counted with GoatCounter, which uses no cookies. Your search and your card are worked out in your browser and are not uploaded anywhere. Visit counts record only the two states of a search, never the places.

Found a mistake?

Open an issue on GitHub with the train number or district and the source that shows the right value. Always confirm a journey on NTES or IRCTC before you travel.