RAC means Reservation Against Cancelation. It is not a confirmed ticket.
A Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) is a type of ticket sold for travel on the Indian Railways.
A RAC ticket ensures certainty of travel but it does not guarantee of full of a berth. RAC berths are generally side lower berth of a coach.
Now if a person who already has a confirmed ticket does not turn up before the train departure or get their confirmed ticket canceled, at that time first RAC ticket holder will get the opportunity to have the full berth of that berth.
Generally, RAC tickets will have two numbers - RAC12/RAC4, WL20/RAC5, WL12/RAC2, etc.
The first number shows the status of the ticket at the time of booking. The second number after the slash (/) shows the current status of your ticket.
So, RAC12/RAC6 means that when you purchased the ticket, it may be that yours was the 12th such ticket under the RAC category, which has moved 6 places after 6 cancellations before your position which is moved to the 6th
(you can assume that you were the 12th person in the queue and you are the 6th person now). You can check the current status of your booking by entering a 10-digit PNR number in the Indian Railway website
So having a RAC ticket means that you can travel sharing a berth with another
person.
You can travel on an online RAC ticket but you cannot travel on an online waitlist ticket.
Why do railways need to issue these types of nonconfirmed tickets?
And the next 40 people give RAC tickets. And next to RAC, Railway gives WL tickets. Now why it is required to issue RAC tickets and WL tickets?
It is seen that from the 80 confirm tickets holder some person previously canceled his tickets. Suppose that 10 people cancel their tickets.
Then first 10 RAC tickets holder were upgraded to confirm tickets and from WL 10 people upgraded to RAC tickets.
On the journey date if any person for any reason didn't travel then on run On Duty TTE after checking that particular berth is vacant then that berth is allowed to first RAC ticket holder.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon