Railways are cheaper and safest way of travel in India. Here are some hacks from my own experience:

Don’t buy food from Pantry car in train. Vegetables, meat they use are not fresh. They buy and keep them in cool temperatures to use for the orders throughout the journey. Either buy food from outside hotels.

If you are travelling alone, talk to the people around you when you start your journey. Behave trustable and try to gain their trust so that they can help you if there is any emergency or at least they may look after your luggage when you go to washroom.

Do not buy things that vendors sell in train. Like earphones, power banks and all. They are useless, no further explanation.

Also snacks and cool drinks sold inside the train are sold at higher prices even though they are of cheap quality. Better you but eatables from stalls in railway stations when train stops.

Do not get out of the train at small stations. At some stations train stops only for 1–2 minutes.

Always give upper bearth your first preference if you want a disturbance free journey.
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Do not indulge in any arguments. Why to get so serious for a journey of few hours?

Keep a book with you. Or atleast a news paper. Trust me, reading a book in journeys is the best thing ever.

Indian Railways twitter handle is always active. If you ever get into any trouble, tweet your issue mentioning them. I have seen people getting real time help with this.

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