Anyone who has stood on an Indian railway platform watching a sleeper coach fill up in minutes will recognise the scene ETB Sivapriyan opens this piece with: “Videos of passengers jostling to board trains from the washing pit lines at Darbhanga Junction in Bihar, hoping to secure seats on a sweltering June afternoon, went viral on social media.” A week later, at Pataliputra, it got worse — people with confirmed AC 2-tier tickets on the Seemanchal Express couldn’t even get through the door:
“Passengers travelling on unreserved tickets occupied the entrances and refused to open the doors of the coaches, leaving many with confirmed reservations stranded at stations despite arriving on time. Most of the passengers travelling on unreserved tickets who occupied the reserved AC and sleeper coaches were aspirants appearing for the Bihar Police Prohibition Constable examination, which was held on June 14 and 17.”
One entrepreneur’s account, shared on X, captures the everyday absurdity: “…there was complete chaos on the platform. We were travelling with our one-year-old baby, who was crying throughout the ordeal. What is the purpose of paying for a confirmed AC ticket if passengers cannot even enter their coach?” And this is not a one-exam, one-route story: “Such scenes have become increasingly common across India, with students, government job aspirants and migrant labourers forced to travel in overcrowded coaches without a seat, often squatting on the floor, in doorways, and even inside toilets.”
The scale of the shortfall shows up in the numbers:
“Data released by the Indian Railways shows that 3.39 crore passengers who booked tickets could not travel in the 2025–26 financial year due to unconfirmed or waitlisted tickets, highlighting the significant gap between demand and available capacity. The number has risen sharply every financial year since 2021, when 1.65 crore travellers were unable to secure confirmed tickets… The number of passengers carried by the Indian Railways has more than doubled, rising from 351.9 crore in 2021–22 to 741 crore in 2025–26, reflecting steady annual growth in rail travel demand.”
Demand roughly doubled in four years; capacity did not. Part of the shortfall traces back to coach length, as the Railways retires older Integral Coach Factory (ICF) rakes for newer Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches:
“While LHB coaches are about two metres longer than the older ICF coaches and offer a slightly higher passenger-carrying capacity per coach across all classes, LHB rakes are generally limited to 21 or 22 coaches because of platform length constraints. Older ICF trains, by contrast, could accommodate up to 24 coaches.”
Better coaches, fewer per train — a well-intentioned upgrade eating quietly into capacity. But the real policy story is the sleeper-to-AC pivot of 2018. Sudhanshu Mani, the former ICF General Manager who also built the Vande Bharat trains, doesn’t disown the ambition behind it, as “India aspires to become a developed nation by 2047” and non-AC coaches, with their 36-year operational life cycle, don’t fit that vision — but the execution, he says, was the problem:
“But the planning was poor, as no proper alternative arrangements were made for passengers who cannot afford AC travel. As a result, the number of sleeper coaches came down, leading to overcrowding, not just in unreserved coaches, but also with unreserved passengers entering the reserved coaches.”
Politics forced a course correction. “Closer to the 2024 elections, as overcrowding became a major political issue highlighted on social media, the NDA government reversed its decision and began producing more non-AC coaches,” alongside Amrit Bharat trains built for a better general-sleeper mix. When Opposition MPs attacked the government in Parliament, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw replied that “the Railways continued to serve the poor and that 70% of coaches were general and non-AC coaches,” with Amrit Bharat trains offering “efficient, modern and safe travel to passengers at very low fares.” The FY2025-26 numbers back this up on paper: “7,000 coaches — 5,000 non-AC and 2,000 AC coaches — have been inducted into the fleet. Non-AC coaches still account for roughly 70% of the fleet, providing 54 lakh of the total 69 lakh passenger seats, while AC accommodations account for the remaining 15 lakh.”
Whether that ratio matches actual demand is another matter. Shubhranshu, a retired railway official, thinks the Railways is flying blind:
“Railways possess years of detailed data on passenger preferences and travel patterns. By leveraging artificial intelligence and data analytics, it can accurately identify routes and seasons where demand is higher for AC, sleeper or general-class travel. Coach composition should be planned accordingly.”
For Sudhanshu, this is ultimately a question of dignity, not just spreadsheets. He stresses that “people cannot be expected to travel long distances in overcrowded and uncomfortable conditions,” and that “railway planning must prioritise ensuring that every long-distance passenger is guaranteed at least a seat, if not a sleeping berth,”with coach-composition decisions guided by long-term foresight rather than knee-jerk reactions to political heat.
Even the rule meant to fix the immediate problem is struggling on the ground. Since May 2025, waitlisted passengers have officially been barred from boarding reserved coaches — but Train Ticket Examiners say enforcement is close to impossible: “We are stuck between those travelling without valid tickets in AC and sleeper coaches and those with reserved tickets. When we can’t enter the coach, how can we even take action?”
The crisis has a clear regional dimension to it. V Ramarao of the Chennai-based Traffic and Transportation Forum notes that “overcrowding on trains in southern India was relatively lower than in northern India, but trains heading north are generally packed with passengers,” with “over 80% of the country’s population” depending on public transport. The berth data confirms the squeeze: “On a Mumbai-bound train from Tamil Nadu, the number of sleeper berths has fallen to 400 from 576, while popular trains such as the Pandian Express (Chennai–Madurai) have lost around 150 sleeper berths.” For migrant workers, Benoy Peter of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development notes: “Since most trains to places such as Assam and West Bengal are packed, migrants are also taking multiple short-distance trains, which require more days to travel.”
Sudhanshu isn’t against premium trains altogether — only that they should run where demand justifies them, even suggesting privatisation so market studies, not politics, decide routes: “When a high-end train runs at a fraction of its capacity, its very purpose is defeated.” Track-building, at least, has picked up: “annual new track commissioning has more than doubled since 2014, averaging 3,118 km per year after 2014, compared with 1,499 km earlier,” though land acquisition and funding delays continue to slow doubling and tripling projects.
The core problem is NOT the rail; it is the rolling stock. Sudhanshu wants Indian Railways to plan for 2050, not the next election cycle, because “rolling stock built today remains in service for decades.”
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