The Railway Recruitment Boards have released the admit card for the first stage Computer Based Test (CBT 1) of the Assistant Loco Pilot (ALP) recruitment 2026. According to the available information, CBT 1 will be held on November 3, 4 and 5. The recruitment drive covers 11,127 posts, which makes it one of the larger railway technical hiring exercises that aspirants have been tracking this year.
The update concerns every candidate who applied for the ALP posts and whose application was accepted. Each candidate should go back to their own notification and application details to confirm the trade, category and Railway Recruitment Board under which they applied, because that is the board whose portal will host their hall ticket.
The admit card is the document that allows you to enter the exam centre. It usually shows your name, photograph, roll number, registration number, exam date, reporting time, shift and full centre address, along with instructions for exam day. Since CBT 1 runs across several days, candidates are assigned to different dates and shifts. Do not assume you have a particular day. Read your own card carefully to find out when and where you have to appear.
To download the admit card, visit the official website of your regional Railway Recruitment Board, which you can reach through the main RRB portal of Indian Railways. Look for the ALP CBT 1 admit card link and log in with your registration number and date of birth or password. Check every detail on the card, especially the spelling of your name, your photograph, signature, category and centre location. If you find a mismatch, contact your RRB through the helpdesk channels listed on the official site without delay. Rely only on the official website for confirmation, and be cautious of unofficial links or messages offering admit cards.
After downloading, take a few clear printouts and keep a soft copy as well. Railway exams normally require a valid original photo identity proof whose details match the application, and sometimes extra photographs. The exact list of required documents is given in the admit card instructions, so follow those rather than general advice. Plan your travel early, ideally with a visit or a route check to the centre beforehand, so that unfamiliar locations or traffic do not cost you entry on exam day.
CBT 1 is only the first step in ALP selection. The precise structure, qualifying rules and shortlisting ratios for this cycle are defined in the official notification. Keep that document handy and treat it as the final authority on how the stages work.
In the final days, revision is more useful than learning new topics. In Mathematics, go back over arithmetic areas such as percentages, ratio, time and work, and speed and distance. In Reasoning, practise series, analogies, coding-decoding and puzzles. General Science tends to draw on school-level physics, chemistry and biology, so a quick pass through core concepts and formulas pays off.
Timed practice is as important as knowing the content. Take full-length mock tests under exam conditions to build speed and to learn which sections you should attempt first. After each test, look at your mistakes. Sort them into conceptual gaps, calculation slips and questions where you simply ran out of time, because each type needs a different fix. Railway exams have generally penalised wrong answers, so confirm the marking scheme in the official notice and avoid blind guessing.
Aspirants often make avoidable errors at this stage. Common ones include leaving the admit card download until the last day, when servers can be slow, not reading the reporting time and gate-closing instructions, and carrying items that are not allowed into the exam hall. Another frequent problem is relying on forwarded messages for dates or shifts instead of the official card. Read the instructions printed on the admit card closely, because they are written for your specific exam.
Look after your health in the days before the test. Regular sleep, light revision on the evening before your shift and a calm morning routine will help you perform better than late-night cramming. Once CBT 1 is over, keep checking your RRB's official website for later updates such as answer keys, results and details of the next stage. Make a note of the details you will need to follow the process through to its later rounds.
Confirm the exact notification, dates and eligibility on the official Railway Recruitment Boards website (https://rrb.indianrailways.gov.in/) before you act — never on a coaching page first. Then keep your preparation moving: take a timed RRB ALP mock test built from real previous-year questions, and review the RRB ALP syllabus.
Always confirm dates and eligibility on the official site before you act.