Hats Off to Indian Railways! They Turned Me From a Train-Lover to a Train-Hater Within a Fortnight!!!

So, as everyone who has known me would already know, I’ve always been a train-lover. I just used to love travelling by trains. Even though the probability of trains being on time in India is almost never equal to unity, it never amounted to much. So it was pretty much ok for me… But recently the railways management seems to have let things go out of hand and I’ve been experiencing a series of events which can be termed a fiasco in the common vocabulary…

October 4, 2009

I had a confirmed ticket on train no. 7604 Yesvantpur-Kacheguda Express, scheduled to depart from Yesvantpur in Bangalore at 4:15 in the evening. Saturday evening onwards, Indian railways on its official site indianrail.gov.in claims that the train is cancelled due to the floods in Kurnool and other districts. So on Sunday morning 11 am (the site still says the train is cancelled), I cancel my ticket and book a ticket on Rajdhani Express scheduled to depart at 20:00 the same day. Then at 2 in the afternoon, the site says that train no. 7604 is running. I was shocked to say the least – at least they should’ve written ‘LIKELY TO BE CANCELLED’ but writing ‘TRAIN CANCELLED’!? What are passengers like us supposed to do – sit down twiddling our thumbs and hope that all cancelled trains be resumed again. Spare me… At least they should inform the passengers with confirmed ticket about the happenings – that’s why they ask for our contact numbers in the reservation slips right, or is it all a formality with no further purpose!?

October 5, 2009

Aboard the Rajdhani Express, waiting for it to arrive it at Kazipet (it was scheduled to go via Vijaywada instead of Kurnool, but Kazipet was on the list). But then, when it is about to reach Warangal, we have an attendant coming around saying it’s not going to Kazipet and the passengers have to alight at Warangal itself. It’s another issue that Kazipet and Warangal are close-by. But if these two were, let us say, 100 km apart – what do they expect us to do? They say another train is waiting – but when someone says “a train is waiting”, it usually implies “you have to wait for the train”. And the reason for all this – the train is late and can’t go to Kazipet. Please don’t give me all that crap. They are making us suffer due to their inability to reach on time. And if they can’t have a fixed schedule for a Rajdhani which is among the premier trains in the whole country, I wonder what should be the plight of Passenger trains.

October 15, 2009

Train no. 2252 Wainganga Express from Korba to Yesvantpur, scheduled to arrive at Kazipet at 22:12 arrives at 23:45 – not a big deal by Indian standards – so I’ll let it pass.

October 16, 2009

Wainganga Express, scheduled to arrive at Yesvantpur at 13:30 – which arrived late by one and a half hours at Kazipet – was on course to reach Yesvantpur by 13:45. So one simple question – if the train which was late by 01:30 at one time can eventually cover up and be late only by 00:15, should we assume that the Indian Railways officials are underestimating the potentials of their own trains!? Why deliberately increase the journey time – are they afraid they won’t make it in time. Or is it complacency as they hold the monopoly in the area of rail transport – so people will travel in any case!

I said in the previous para that the train was “on course to reach Yesvantpur by 13:45”. But when does it reach - 14:45. All coz it’s halted right outside Yesvantpur railway station. And what do we find – a passenger train going while a superfast is halted. I thought the order of preference was

Rajdhani/Shatabdi > Superfast > Express/Mail > Passenger

Anyways, the train is allowed to resume it’s journey after three trains pass-by. But I had decided to take a walk before that and reached the station before the train. But one thing struck me – was it because the train was 15 minutes late that there was no place for it in the railway station!? I wonder if that would be a genuine cause. And the real cause – I’ll leave it to the imagination of anyone reading this….


Guess I’m fated to travel in trains till I graduate from NIT Warangal, but once it’s done – I hope to say sayonara to trains… But..........only time’ll tell…