Tickets for trains can be bought in four different ways. Among other things, as shown below.
- By going to a train station, you can buya train ticket.
- By calling Dialog or Mobitel, you can book tickets.
- You are asking your travel agency to book them for you too.
- Booking the tickets through a company that sells train tickets
All four of them are good. It's not true
that you can book a train ride from Kandy to Ella, but if you're a tourist, you
won't be able to. A lot more about this will follow.
Note: If
you don't need reserved seats, you don't need to book the train tickets in
advance. Please show up on the day of your train ride and pay for it.
1. How do you buy train tickets by going to a train station to buy them?
Step 1: Find
a train station with an M ticket counter.
M ticketing counters are the ticket
counters only for booking seats for training. Only the most important train
stations have M ticketing counters, and they only have them. The M ticketing
counters are at Colombo Fort, Kandy, Nanu Oya, and Ella, some train stations
with M ticketing counters.
Step 2: Tell
the person at the ticket booth the date, the starting and ending stations, the
time the train needs to leave, and how many tickets you want.
Step 3: When
you make a reservation, have your identity card number or passport number ready
to forget it.
Check out Step 4: Pay the amount due and
get your ticket.
Make sure everything is correct before leaving the counter.
By calling Dialog or Mobitel: 2. How to book train tickets by calling them
Step 1: Make sure you have enough money
on your Dialog or Mobitel sim card to cover all of your calls and texts
(Usually not more than LKR 2000 per ticket)
This is the second thing you need to do
if you have a Dialog cell phone and call 444. If you have a Mobitel sim card,
you can dial 365 to contact the calling centre.
Step 3: Tell
the call centre worker the date, the starting and ending stations, the required
train departure time, and the number of tickets you want.
Assistant: You need to give the
assistant your ID or passport number so that he can make a reservation for you.
Step 5: When
the call centre assistant repeats your train journey details, pay attention and
correct them. There is no way to change the details later or get a refund for cancelling.
Step 6: When
you agree to the terms, they will take the money from your Dialog or Mobitel
account.
A train station with an M ticketing
counter is where you should get your train ticket. You need to show your ID to
get the ticket. You can also get a train ticket by going to a Telecom office
and getting it there.
The third way to book train tickets is to ask your travel agency for help.
Depending on which company you go
through, there might be a lot of different ways to get this done. We buy train tickets for one of our clients, like this.
When we plan a full tour for a guest, we
will include the Ella train ride if it is possible to include it in the
package. To reserve seats for a guest, we will only need the guest's ID number.
We only have to think about getting the people there and back in this case.
To book train tickets for someone else,
they'll have to ask us to do it.
Once the guest tells us that they want
to book train tickets, we ask for their passport or ID number to make the
reservations.
People pay us only for the cost of the
train ticket. We don't include train tickets in our transportation packages, so
we'll send you a separate bill for the train ticket costs.
We will drive both times to the train station so our guest can get their train tickets. The traveller can only get the tickets.
4) How to book the tickets through a train tickets booking agent
Asia and Visit Sri Lanka Tours are two
well-known companies. They haven't all been great, though. Do some research and
pick an agent. This is what you should do. Both websites have enough
information to make a booking through their websites.
There are a lot of beautiful train rides in Sri Lanka. What is the best one?
From Nanu Oya to Ella, Sri Lanka's train
is the best in the country. This is the second-best train ride. It goes from
Kandy to Nanu Oya. Both train trips take you through small towns, tea
plantations, and mountains. This is one of the things you should do in Sri
Lanka, and you should do it.
To get to Ella, a tourist can't book train tickets independently.
If you want to book a train ride to
Ella, you can go to a train station or call Dialog or Mobitel. The problem is
that when you try to get the tickets, they're already sold out most of the time.
Ticket sales start 30 days before each
train journey day on all train routes (at 10.00 am). If you want to go from
Kandy to Ella by train, you usually have to buy a ticket in less than 10
minutes.
If you are a tourist, chances are you won't be in Sri Lanka for 30 days before your train ride to Ella. Tourists should not book train tickets for Ella on their own because it is not practical for them to do so.
No third-party agency can guarantee
train tickets for the Kandy to Ella train route.
Often, people ask us this question.
Nobody, not even travel agents who sell train tickets, can guarantee that the
tickets for the Ella train rides will be available.
Each person has to go to a train station
or call the Dialog or Mobitel call centres to get their ticket. It doesn't seem
like any third parties get extra attention when they buy train tickets from the
railway department or Dialog / Mobitel. So, no one else can guarantee that you'll
get on the train.
Check the terms of train ticket booking
agents, and you will see that they all say that they cannot guarantee train
tickets.
If someone promises to get you to train tickets for a popular route like Kandy – Ella, they are either not telling the truth, or trying to scam you out of your money, so be careful. An honest agent will do their best to get you the train tickets you want, but they will let you know there is no way to be sure.
Why would anyone buy train tickets from a booking agent if they aren’t sure they will work?
Request that your travel agency book
your tickets take care of other parts of your Sri Lanka trip. You can also do
this yourself. People who buy train tickets on their own will pay less than
people who buy them through a booking service. As a bonus, we charge the cost
of the train tickets as a separate fee for this service.
They are also suitable for tourists who drive or go backpacking because no one else can help them with their train tickets.
It's best to use the Sri Lanka Railway
Department's Search Train tool to know where you want to go on a train and how
long it will take.
If you don't know which station to go
from, check out seat61.com.
Sri Lankan train tickets can be hard to
buy because there is a lot of bad and confusing information on the internet. If
this article helps, I hope it will help you get your train tickets more quickly.
We Have many more articles that can help you plan your trip to Sri Lanka, like this one. Check them out. Please send us a message if you want us to help you plan your trip to Sri Lanka.