The (somewhat) comprehensive guide to traveling on the train with your cats.

Hello! If you’re here, you’re probably looking to move cities with your cats or falling down a really strange rabbit hole. When I did this research I watched several 25 minute vlogs by people who put a cat/dog on the thumbnail, read through Quora and found very outdated information on other personal blogs.

I didn’t know a lot of people who personally did this, and the information online was random and unhelpful. You are reading the guide I wished I had access to.

 

  • You can only transport pets in first class on the Indian Railways. The first class coach is a long corridor with separate doors leading into 4-seater cabins and a 2-seater coupes. When you book your tickets, make sure to request a 2-seater coupe if you are traveling alone/with 1 other companion. You may need to ensure that your co-passengers in a 4-seater cabin are okay with you traveling with pet(s).

    Another way to ensure that you are allotted a coupe is to write to the Chief Reservation Supervisor/analogous persons a few days before you are due to travel. This is the process followed for emergency quota allocations on the day that the chart for your train is prepared. Note that charting, where seat numbers are allotted, happens 3 hours before the train is due to depart. You need to plead your case for the coupe to the person doing the charting before this.

    Typically, within the week of your journey, you make a formal written request which should be submitted to the Chief Reservation Supervisor of the station you are departing from. This person does not typically have an office in the station. For instance, if your train is leaving from Hazrat Nizamuudin, New Delhi you drop the request at the Northern Railways HQ in Baroda House.

  • Assuming you have booked your tickets one month in advance, please take these 3-4 weeks to get the cats vaccinated as per schedule. Figure out if you want to get a cage or a carrier. I was advised by some friends to get a cage so the cats would have some visibility of what’s happening. This was a bad idea for 2 reasons (1) the cage I purchased, a medium-sized travel cage built for dogs, would not have fit through the internal doors of the first class coach; (2) my cats were not used to traveling in a cage and panicked when exposed to the sounds and smells of a busy platform. I put them in the carrier they were used to and it worked out, they had a spot to nest when scared and kept going back into it whenever they wanted.

    Checklist -
    (1) Make sure vaccinations are in order.
    (2) Do a dry run in the cage/crate/carrier you will use for the journey.

  • Contact your vet for a medical fitness certificate no earlier than 24 hours before the travel date. Discuss with her if you need to carry any medicine to calm your cat. I did not want to give my cats anything, but I wondered if that would have made things a bit smoother as they got really restless and wanted to be let out of the coupe.

    Also this is likely a personal preference but the carrier is heavy and I would advise keeping luggage to a minimum, unless you have help keeping track of your luggage and have someone to help you move this luggage on and off the train.

  • Get to the station very early (3-4 hours before the train departs) and book your cat as a parcel at the station’s parcel office and get a receipt for the booking. There seems to be a form you need to fill for this purpose, where you should declare the cat as a “dog“. You pay a nominal fee for this - typically Rs. 150 per animal. I advise getting there early because there was a VERY long wait, with other people urgently trying to book their luggage, vehicles and other belongings or waiting to receive them from trains that have arrived. I came an hour and a half before the train was set to leave and had to abandon the line so I could make the train. I wound up paying a fine for failing to book my animals, calculated as a base fee times the distance travelled per animal. I traveled 2200 KMs with 2 unbooked animals, it was not an insignificant amount. This is at the discretion of the ticket collector, who may choose to throw you off the train or banish the animals to the “dog box“ - a windowless room on the train for livestock. It is NOT pleasant.

    In addition to non-slip bowls for food and water + treats, I packed the smallest litter pan I could find with doggy poop bags. When the journey was done, I packed all the leftover sand into a garbage bag and disposed it off separately.

    My cats did not eat much during the 26 hour journey but did poop and pee a few times.

  • The first class cabin/coupe has a sliding door and it will help corral the cats. After the ticket checker has come to see you, check your cats’ medical certificate and the receipt from the booking office - you should allow your cat to stretch her legs. She will likely hide, barely eat and be scared. It’s ok. The cabin/coupe is sealed off and there is no way for her to dart out or slip through anywhere except the door.

 

Rajalakshmi/Raji