Sri Lanka Train Fare Calculator — SLR 1st, 2nd & 3rd Class

Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) prices tickets on a stage-fare system rather than a flat per-kilometre rate. The rail network is divided into distance bands — short suburban hops in 5 km steps, long-distance journeys in 50–100 km steps — and SLR gazettes a base 3rd-class fare for each band. 1st-class and 2nd-class fares are derived by applying fixed multipliers to the 3rd-class column. Train-type and reserved-seat surcharges, where applicable, are added per ticket.

1. Find the journey distance.The calculator stores the SLR network as a tree rooted at Colombo Fort, with each station's cumulative km from Fort along its actual rail path. For two stations on the same branch, distance is the absolute difference of those values; for stations on different branches, the path backtracks to the junction (Polgahawela, Ragama, Maho, Peradeniya, Maradana, etc.) and forward again.
2. Look up the stage. SLR stages are (min, max] — a 30.0 km trip sits in stage 6 (25–30 km); a 30.1 km trip steps up to stage 7 (30–35 km). The boundary value belongs to the lower stage.
3. Read the 3rd-class base fare for that stage from the SLR table. This is the source of truth; the calculator stores only this column and derives the others.
4. Apply the class multiplier: ×3.0 for 1st class, ×1.8 for 2nd class, ×1.0for 3rd class. Round each ticket to the nearest Rs 5 — SLR's ticketing rule.
5. Add train-type surcharge for Intercity Express (Rs 150 per ticket, e.g. Senkadagala Menike, Udarata Menike, Yal Devi) or Night Mail (Rs 50 per ticket, e.g. overnight Jaffna service).
6. Add reserved-seat surcharge if you booked Observation Saloon (Rs 1000), 1st-class Sleeperette, or 2nd-class Sleeperette. These are fixed amounts per ticket, regardless of distance.
7. Child concession:passengers aged 5–12 pay half of the class portion, with full train-type and reserved-seat surcharges. Children under 5 travel free on a parent's lap.
8. Multiply by passengers and double for a return trip. SLR does not discount returns — the return fare is exactly twice the one-way per the gazette.

The calculator exposes a cross-check function lookupAdultFareFromChart that re-derives the adult per-ticket fare straight from the stage table without going through the main calculation path — if it ever disagrees with the main calculator on the same inputs, the chart wins and there is a bug to fix.

• Sri Lanka Railways — official site (fare schedule, timetable, station list)
• Sri Lanka Railways — gazetted fare schedule page
• Mobitel mTicket — official SLR online ticketing

The SLR stage table, class multipliers, and surcharges on this page were reconciled to the Sri Lanka Railways fare schedule, latest published revision on 2026-05-12. SLR may have published a newer revision since — verify against the chart at the booking counter, which is always the authoritative legal fare. The encoded data covers 23 stages up to 500 km and 65 stations across the Main, Coastal, Hill Country, Puttalam, Kelani Valley, Northern, Eastern, and Trincomalee lines.