Thread: The Great Circular Indian Railway Challenge

My pleasure.

Take your time.

Originally Posted by Mark_Lester

Hello, we're running a charity trip round Indian railways next February. It's just for fun, and charity, the only companies involved are Indian Railways, and whatever railway food vendors we hit.

There's a blog about the project (oops, I cant do URLs of course) just google The Great Circular Indian Rail Challenge or "GCIRC & trains" .

Really great work. Hoping you will be having a great research which will help Indian railway............

Hello guys,
My plans are progressing nicely, we are approaching the moment of truth when we find out who has got the bottle to book themselves into this mobile funny farm, and who is chicken.

Anyway, I have some technical queries about mobile coverage. I know that you cant get pre paid sim cards for Assam. My questions are
1. When does "Assam" start in this respect ?. Can I still send texts as far as Guwahati for instance ?.
2. If you are a native Indian and have a plan with a fixed address, can you still make calls. i.e will our natives be able to send texts on my behalf ?.

I also understand that Kashmir is a blackout zone for similar reasons. Again, where does "kashmir" start, can I send texts in Udhampur ?.

Originally Posted by Mark_Lester

1. When does "Assam" start in this respect ?. Can I still send texts as far as Guwahati for instance ?.

Originally Posted by Mark_Lester

2. If you are a native Indian and have a plan with a fixed address, can you still make calls. i.e will our natives be able to send texts on my behalf ?.

Guwahati is in Assam state and post paid connections work fine as long as there is coverage.Guwahati and Jorhat are the two main cities in the state.

Originally Posted by Mark_Lester

I also understand that Kashmir is a blackout zone for similar reasons. Again, where does "kashmir" start, can I send texts in Udhampur ?.

Last time (April 2009) I was in J&K my post paid mobile connection worked fine but my reliance data card didn't work there although it is a post paid connection. Udhampur is in J&K state.


Although I dont have much experience with Indian railways as my only travel by train in recent times has been Delhi to Jallandhar but my understanding is that you will find an "STD" booth (Subscribers trunk dialing not sexually transmitted disease) at every station or at least at the big ones...

Hello again good people.
So we've now got past the stage of working out who is really going to turn up on this. The sad news is that we've only one Indian doing the whole gig, mumbai-mumbai. We've a couple of others, hard core train fans, who we'll collect along the east coast.
There are 17 (that's 16 booked on their indrail passes, and our one Indian) doing the full circle. We'll be having breakfast in Ahmedabad, Amritsar (lunch and all afternoon evening actually) Jammu, Delhi and Kolkata, so if you are in the area and fancy sharing a bite with a very varied colection of people, you are most welcome.

We really do want to be able to update the blog as we move round though. From what I gather, the only option that is going to work in rural areas is BSNL. But then a pre-paid card isnt going to work in the really remore areas anyway, so is there any point going for pre-paid BSNL. Will Vodafone or Airtel work virtually anywhere a pre-paid BSNL will work anyway, bearing in mind that we are going to be on a railway track for the whole journey. i.e I dont care if only BSNL works in remote areas of say Orissa if the others are going to work all along the coast anyway, etc.

In short, if you are on a train going round the edge of India, which areas, other than assam and jammu, am I going to say "damn it, I wish we'd got BSNL" if I'm using vodfone or AirTel ?.

^ about BSNL i dont know who told you the very problem... bsnl is good for all places, and it works flawlessly in roaming and is the only provider in many distant places of the countryside..
tested.

sorry for any confusion mickey I know BSNL has the best coverage. My queston is, considering we are going to be pre-paid and on a railway track, is there any benefit of going for them instead of Vodafone or AirTel.
I understand there is quite a price war going on between all of them, so there might be a better deal, especially with regard to internet, on Vodafone. or may be not.

yes for that you are correct... but voda and airtel are best for that.. sorry for the ill answer..

So, regarding assam and jammu. Is my vodafone post paid roaming international sim card going to work there ?. I'll want to get a local card for the rest else it's going to cost me a fortune to use the net, but I can update the blog via sms in the northern extremes if I'm OK on my international roaming.

And if anyone can tell me if being on a mainline means you're almost certain to be on all 3 networks, I'd appreciate it.

What i know that IDEA and Airtel are there in Jammu.. the better ones..


You should use gprs feature with images off.