Originally Posted by
Mr. Bean
Another thing is that for higher classes, the tickets are reserved/blocked by quota depending on city of origination. So, if you can't find 8 tickets from your intended city of origination, try looking for tickets from a city upstream from where you intend to board, then get on at your intended city of origin. I've never tried this myself, but I've heard others having varying degrees of success with it.
That depends on how much you can "reason" with the ticket examiner .. chances are you'll be fined for ticketless travel and made to get off the train if you pull that stunt. The same thing if you book a ticket from IRCTC (online) and its still waitlisted once the chart's prepared ... your ticket gets auto canceled then.
So what you basically do - especially if you're like WL1 - is to buy an unreserved ticket first, get on and then speak to the TTE. If there are any last minute openings from cities en route, he'll put you in there (you would want to tip him a hundred / two hundred rupees or so though)