Pooled Quota Waiting List (PQWL)
PQWL shares one pool of berths between several intermediate stations along the route, rather than reserving a slice for one station.
How often PQWL actually confirms
Measured on 32,290 PQWL tickets RailTC tracked from the first check through to their final status — not an estimate.
That headline hides most of the story — where you sit in the list matters far more than the quota does:
| Your position | Confirmed | Tickets tracked |
|---|---|---|
| PQWL 1-10 | 39.1% | 15,520 |
| PQWL 11-25 | 30.1% | 9,808 |
| PQWL 26-50 | 26.3% | 4,858 |
| PQWL 51+ | 27.7% | 2,104 |
Tickets we checked once and never followed are excluded, and any band with fewer than 150 tracked tickets is left out rather than shown as a percentage. Past rates describe what happened; they are not a promise about your ticket.
How PQWL works
- One pooled allotment covers a group of short-distance and intermediate journeys, so you are queueing against passengers travelling between other station pairs too.
- It is normally issued for journeys that start at the originating station and end at an intermediate one, or run between two intermediate stations.
- Because the pool is shared rather than dedicated, PQWL movement is less predictable than RLWL — a cancellation somewhere else on the route can clear your ticket.
What to do about it
Treat PQWL as a middle case: better odds than a deep general waitlist, less positional certainty than RLWL.
Check your own PNROther statuses on a train ticket
More on RailTC
Everything else worth checking while your ticket is still moving.