Premier Trains in India Going Mediocre!?

India - the country with the largest rail network in the whole world! One would expect the train service to be at par, if not above, those elsewhere in the world. Alas! It ends up being nothing more than a hope - a hope which might never come to life the way things seem to be going..

Recently, the trains have been coming late, even by Indian standards. Just a couple of days back, I had to board the train no. 571 Salem-Bangalore passenger from Hosur to Banglore City. The train which was supposed to arrive at 1650 hours somehow manages to reach Hosur by 1750 hours - a delay of an hour in a four-hour journey, ie. a delay of 25%. Quite convenient, eh!?

Anyway, it's only a passenger train. So lets not bother about it now. Then I board train no. 2429 Bangalore Rajdhani Express at 2020 hours from Bangalore City. Now the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis are the best trains available in India, except trains which run primary for tourism like the Golden Chariot. (By default, I travel more by sleeper (and even general) compartments in express and superfast trains - but recently I've been getting aboard the Rajdhani quite often). But the moment I enter compartment B1, I was like "Is this really Rajdhani!?" The last non-Rajdhani air-conditioned compartment I had travelled by was that of Sheshadri Express from Vijaywada to Bangalore almost a year ago. And that compartment was in a much better shape than this one.

The restrooms were a complete mess. One of my co-passengers quipped, "The last time I travelled by Rajdhani, all the compartments were ancient. In this train, only this compartment seems old. Maybe they left this one behind." Forget the infrastructure, the service doesn't seem to be any better either. The next day, the newspapers are provided at 0800 hours, way past the schedule. The attendant comes and takes the order for breakfast (I wonder whether I should call it an order - we have only two options (omelette or upma-vada) at around the same time. Not a bad time at all. And then he vanishes and is nowhere to be seen till 0915 hours. Then also, he brings only the upma-vada. I had to get down at Kazipet Jn. and the train was scheduled to reach there at 0930 hours. So I hunt that guy down and ask the status of my omelette. He says it's not ready yet and tells me to take the only alternative available. Following the age-old saying "Something is better than nothing", I grab a packet of upma-vada, a couple of bread slices and a carton of juice (There was no time to eat in the train, so I decided I'll eat it on my way to college).

Then I just casually talk to him about the dire straits this train found itself in. He blames the whole thing on his manager saying that guy is inefficient - the start of a blame-game. It's not a matter of who is to blame, but how this situation can be improved. And if this continues, I'm surely gonna stop travelling by Rajdhani in the future. And I might not be the only one...