Remember the cover art of Atlas Shrugged? Believe it or not, when you come to think of the person responsible for running the Indian Railways (if you think someone is really running it after all!) must be looking like that by the end of the day – occupational hazard if you are responsible for transporting 1.5x the Global population every year!
Borrowing from an old SAIL tagline – one can aptly say”There’s a little bit of Rail in everybody’s life”. People in NCR might have visited a very popular eating joint called “Sahib Sindh Sultan” in Ambience mall, Gurugram..but little did we wonder about the significance of the Royal sounding name. On 16th April 1853, the first passenger train ran between Bombay and Thane – the 14 carriages carried 400 people and was hauled by not 1 but 3 steam locos, Sahib, Sindh and Sultan. And since started the unstoppable story of Indian Railways – well till 23rd March 2020 at least. And what even wars couldn’t achieve, the lifeline of millions of traveling Indians came to an abrupt halt due to nanometer size adversary.
On the 19th day of our nationwide lockdown, I am reminded about trains and the freedom its generally associated with it. And with nothing best to do on a seemingly long weekend where you can’t step out, I thought its best to jot down my memories of trains – as a cocktail of facts, fiction & familiarity.
Top 3 Facts
- Chittarnjan Locomotive Works – the oldest loco factory in India, is also the largest facility manufacturing railway locos in the world! Starting from steam engines to latest electric ones, the facility has produced all kinds. It started production on 26th January, 1950 – our first Republic Day
- Size matters! Indian Railways is the worlds 8th largest employer (1.4mn headcount >1.3mn in Indian defense forces), is a major shareholder in 14 public sector entities like IRCON, CONCOR, IRCTC,RITES,CRIS among notables. Its also India’s largest landowner (4.7 lakh hectares, ~30% more than the size of Goa).
- And that, despite all its shortcomings repeatedly being cited by the armchair strategists like yours truly, when it came to a national emergency like COVID 19, it quickly converted 5000 of its coaches into isolation wards for patients – that’s close to 80,000 beds, with a plan to convert a total of 20,000 coaches, if needed.
And that’s what again made me look upto the Service trumping Commerce angle all over again.
Top 3 Fiction
- “Mere sapno ki rani kab ayegi tu” is perhaps one of the best train songs that has been shot in Indian movies. And as the memories of Rajesh Khanna crooning in an open jeep following Sharmila Tagore inside the famous Darjeeling toy train lingers on, the visual treat of the World Heritage train twisting and turning on the himalayan loops have long been the main draw for me.
Batasia Loop 
Ghum..the highest heritage station in the world!
2. Jab we met….the only time when Kareena Kapoor acted :P. The Mumbai to Delhi train ride also teaches us about the hitherto unknown (at least to me!) city of Ratlam! And the train do play an important character in the whole movie. My fav part…“Ab toh mera haath chhod do … itni bhi sundar nahin hoon main”
3. Chaiya chaiya from Dil Se..shot on top of the Ooty train..Nilgiri Mountain Railway..whosoever have tried boarding-deboarding a moving train can appreciate the effort of the whole crew in pulling off this one-of-a-kind shot!
Top 3 Familiarity
- My first ever long distance train trip was aboard the Poorva Express, from Durgapur to Delhi – a distance of ~ 1300 kms, in the month of May, 1988. The wonder-stuck boy in me was soaking up as many experiences as possible in that 22hr train ride…from 3km bridge crossing the Son river, the lights at Allahabad station at midnight, to that one-off instance of a villager stopping an EMU train by waving his hand at the Tundla junction (imagine that!), this is one ride which still makes me pick a train ride anyday over other forms of travel.
- In September 2003, a gang of boys took off from Ernakulum, Kerala for a trip to Durgapur, West Bengal. A last minute decision, we went directly to the station window to book our tickets, and got one for the next day itself! Considering ourselves lucky, we happily boarded the train….only to realize later that this trip gonna take 4 days – and across almost half of India, crossing states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, UP and Bihar..phew!! We learnt so much about the geography of India on those 4 days (and nights!) which no PhD thesis can match (like Mhow – a very important army cantonment housing the Army War College and the Infantry school for eg. )and tasting almost all kinds of biriyanis (malabar, andhra, lucknowi) that rail canteens had to offer.
3. Delhi – Durgapur ….now this is a very regular trip that we as a family do , but always look forward to it during the time of the Durga Pujas. What added loads of colour to the latest one in October 2019 was that we didn’t have a confirmed ticket till the time of boarding. At the end, once we reached the station, just 1 of us had a confirmed ticket (between the 2.5 of us). But I googled and found that it makes us eligible to board the train. Thankfully, a Rajdhani 1st AC is comfortable enough for 2 people and a baby to share 1 seat…icing on the cake was the other family traveling with us who took an instant liking to Ayam, and he ended up spending almost the full 14 hr trip on the laps of the new “train granny” :). Disclaimer: adjustment is key here.
So what’s your favourite memories around the rails? Do share, would love to hear!
One More Week 