Well, at lesat they are trying to keep it LIVE.. this website (indiarailinfo) has a google maps mashup on their website which tries to give you an almost live status of where your train has reached. If you need to find out how far your family or friends have reached, just click on the train name or number and it will bring up a live tracker next to the train schedule.
Pretty impressive considering it is not a state run website and is not connected to the Indian Railways at all.
indian railway LIVE status
To book your tickets though, we advise doing it from the official Indian Railway site. It sometimes is slow due to the amount of people booking tickets online these days.
link here