What is the difference between WL and PQWL?

GNWL General Waiting List waitlisted tickets are issued to the passenger who begins his/her journey from the originating station of a route or stations closer to the originating station. PQWL Pooled Quota Waiting List is shared by several small stations of a train route.



Excellent question! This is a very common point of confusion for Indian railway passengers.

Here’s a simple breakdown of the difference between WL (Waitlist) and PQWL (Pooled Quota Waitlist).

The Core Difference: Quota vs. Journey Segment

  • WL (Waitlist): This is the main, general waitlist for a train. It applies to the entire journey from the train’s source station to its destination. When a confirmed ticket is cancelled, the first person on the WL gets the seat/berth.
  • PQWL (Pooled Quota Waitlist): This is a waitlist for a specific segment of the train’s journey, created from a “pooled quota” of seats. This quota is reserved for passengers traveling between intermediate stations (neither the source nor the destination of the train).

WL (Waitlist) - The General List

  • Scope: Entire journey (Source to Destination).
  • How it works: If you book a ticket from Delhi to Mumbai and get WL5, you are 5th in line for any cancellation on that train for the entire route.
  • Confirmation Chances: Generally higher than PQWL because you are competing for all cancellations on the entire route.
  • What happens if it confirms? Your ticket gets confirmed for the journey you booked.

PQWL (Pooled Quota Waitlist) - The Intermediate Segment List

  • Scope: Only for a specific intermediate journey segment (e.g., Kota to Mumbai for a train starting from Delhi).
  • How it works: Indian Railways

People Also Ask

All types of waiting lists are WL. GNWL is the best. You will get into it if you book from the starting station, or from a few particular 'charting' stations en-route. PQWL is a special type of WL which combines short journey spans on a longer route.

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PQWL tickets are distributed once the Pooled Quota tickets have sold out. Confirmation of PQWL tickets is unlikely because they are lower on the priority list than even the GNWL tickets. However, the probability of confirmation of your individual ticket may be different from what is expected.

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Passengers in a ticket are assigned ticket status which can be waiting (WL), If the passenger status is marked as WL followed by a number, it means the passenger has a waitlisted status. This can get confirm, if passengers who have booked tickets earlier for the same journey cancel their tickets.

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How many chances are there to confirm PQWL 3 when the journey date is August 14? 95% chance are to confirm of your ticket.

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While booking ticket, those get 'confirmed' status or 'RAC' (Reservation Against Cancellation) status they can travel on the journey date but those who get 'WL' status, they cannot travel on the ticket as they will not be given a seat/berth in the train.

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Chances are very less as i have my own experiece with pool quote waiting list aka pqwl. Its very rare to see this get confirmed. It also depends on the route you are travelling,the season and the class. You can try confirmtkt website to check the confirmation chances.

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If you have booked the ticket online through IRCTC and it doesn't get confirmed until charting, IRCTC will refund your amount. Hence traveling on PQWL, no matter what class you're in, will be treated as ticketless travel and penalized accordingly.

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PQWL - Pooled Quota Waiting List means your travel starts from any intermediate station to the final destination or, Source station till any of the intermediate station or, any two intermediate stations of the train journey. Here in this case PQWL 5 was the Waiting list count of the ticket for which you have booked.

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PQWL is better because it gets confirmed first than RLWL . PQWL: Pooled Quota Waiting List. RLWL : Remote location Waiting List.

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If the ticket booked online on IRCTC has a WL (waiting list) status, does it get automatically cancelled if it doesn't get confirmed? Yes, the tickets booked online by irctc website get cancelled automatically if all passengers on the ticket remain waitlisted even after preparation of chart.

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PQWL - Under Pooled Quota Waitlist, passengers travelling between intermediate stations and have a separate waitlist from the general waitlist. 8. RLWL - A Remote Location Waitlist has high chances of confirmation.

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PQWL means Pooled Quota Waiting List tickets. A Pooled Quota Waiting List (PQWL) is shared by several small stations.

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PQWL tickets are distributed once the Pooled Quota tickets have sold out. Confirmation of PQWL tickets is unlikely because they are lower on the priority list than even the GNWL tickets.

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