Upvote:11
There's no guarantee that all passengers on your ticket will be confirmed.
The tickets can get confirmed any time, depending on cancellations, if any, by other passengers, who're traveling in the same class, as you have booked the tickets for. If you ticket gets confirmed, you will not know of the Coach and Seat number, till the Reservation Chart is prepared on the day of travel. Nonetheless, you will start seeing a status of CNF on your queries, which indicate that your ticket has been confirmed. You should keep checking the status of your ticket at Indian Railways PNR status website.
The reservation charts are prepared usually 2-4 hours before the scheduled departure of the train. The time varies for trains, but do not expect the chart before 4 hours anyhow. For early morning trains, the chart is usually prepared overnight.
In Indian Railways reservation system, a Waiting List ticket first changes status to Reservation Against Cancellation (better know as RAC) and subsequently it gets Confirmed.
Going by that, here are possible scenarios:
Here is a short description, of what RAC stands for
RESERVATION AGAINST CANCELLATION (R.A.C.) :
The passengers whose names figure under R.A.C., are provided reserved sitting accommodation initially and are likely to get berths becoming vacant due to last minutes cancellation of reservation of passengers not turning up in time before the departure of the train,.