My readers will remember my love for the railways from my earlier posts. Just one written ten years ago should suffice. One of the few regrets that I now is my inability to travel, particularly by train.
I was totally zapped therefore when I received a clip from my friend on WhatsApp showing a freight train on Indian tracks that seemed to just go on and on. I had to wait till I could sit at the computer to search for more details about it and finally found this article.
Can you believe that the train is 2 Kilometres long? I am still in a state of amazement.
When I responded to Cheerful Monk’s lament about the inability of Amtrak to give some indication of the ETA of their delayed train journey, without even thinking about it I used a Proper Noun which was, at least for my generation, a generic term – Bradshaw. I quote – “Here, by and large, our trains run on time and since someone or the other will be carrying a Bradshaw, or the conductor will have information on the status from station to station.”
My earliest memory of a Bradshaw goes back to my boyhood when my uncle used to visit Chennai, then called Madras, where we lived then, to attend to Senate Meetings in the Madras University. He used to come and go back to the small town from which he came by train and would share his experiences with us about the journey, and also show us the Bradshaw to explain how he kept track whether the train would be on time or not.
Subsequenlty, when all grown up and I was a travelling salesman, the Bradshaw regularly bought from Higginbothoms railway book stalls was a constant companion. Higginbotham’s played a very important role in my life by not only being the source for Bradshaws, but also for many novels and non fiction books that I regularly bought to keep myself entertained during long train journeys and lonely hotel nights during times when there was no Television or radios in hotel rooms or railway retiring and / or waiting rooms.
Cheerful Monk’s post simply brought back those memories and I am amazed that the Indian Railway Time Table is still called Indian Bradshaw and Higginbotham’s is still going strong.
“The last time he came out to play with you, you reassigned his gender.”
Lin, the promised bonus post on the Travel Series. I had written this three years ago!
“Gender Change.
During my recent trips to the South of India, I had a couple of misadventures with the Indian Railways.
To start with, I was unable to reserve my seat on a train from Bengaluru to Chennai either directly online or through an online travel agent because, the Indian Railways reservation system has blacklisted my name for some strange reason. I am told that it is most likely because my account with them has been dormant for many years now. Others including my sister Padmini, too confirm that this happens when one does not use the system for a long period of time.
I therefore requested a friend in Bengaluru to physically go to the station and book the ticket which he kindly did. Unfortunately however, he failed to check the hard copy of the ticket before couriering it to me to reach me before I left Pune. On receipt I found that my gender had been entered as Female!
You have to know somethings about the Indian Railways to understand the horror I felt on finding myself classified as a Female. The IR is a government department under the charge of a full time Minister in the Central Government of India. It is therefore highly bureaucratic and as with other bureaucracies, open to misuse of authority. If a ticket examiner had decided to make my life miserable, this was a perfect opportunity, which he would have considered as a blessing from his favourite God.
On arrival at Bengaluru I rushed to the main railway station to see if the ticket could be altered to avoid my being offloaded and was directed to the Assistant Station Superintendent. In that office there were two worthies sitting at empty desks doing nothing. The first one, a male, I went to was seated immediately to my left as I entered the room. He was very polite and asked me what the problem was and on learning what it was, promptly yelled to the other person, a lady sitting across the room to solve the problem. I took myself over to the lady and handed over the ticket and she scrutinised it and the following discussion took place;
Lady: “Are you Ramana Rajgopaul?”
Me: “Yes Madam, I am indeed Ramana Rajgopaul.
Lady: “But you are not a female!”.
Me: “Yes Madam, I indeed am not, as you can see.”
Lady: “So what is the problem?”
Me: “I would like to ensure that I am not offloaded from the train due to this misrepresentation and would appreciate your amending the ticket to make me a Male.”
Lady: “That is not possible sir. This is an e-ticket and we cannot access the computer to edit such mistakes.”
Me: “So, what do I do?”
Lady: “Have you got some identification proof with you?”
Me: “Yes, my Income Tax Permanent Account Number Card, my driving license and if need be, I can carry my passport too.”
Lady: “Please show me what you have now with you.”
Me: Produced the PAN Card and the Driving License.
Lady: :Good! It is clear that you are not a female. All that you have to do is to show this to the ticket examiner on board the train.”
Me: “Supposing he refuses to accept and offloads me?”
Lady: “Don’t worry Sir. This happens all the time and all TEs are quite used to seeing these mistakes. He won’t offload you.”
Me: “Just suppose he does, what do I do?”
Lady: “Come back here and submit a written complaint about the whole matter.”
Me: “Thank you very much Madam. It is a great relief to know that there is a complaint mechanism that I can use by returning to Bengaluru from wherever I am offloaded which will give me some relief.”
Lady: “No mention. It is my duty.”
I duly boarded the train on the due date and after about an hour into the journey, the TE did come and asked for the ticket and this is what transpired between the two of us.
TE: Sir, you are not a female.”
Me: No, I am most certainly not!”
TE: Have you got some ID with you?”
I produced my PAN card.
He took a pen from his pocket and circled the ‘female’ entry, wrote ‘Male’ inside the circle, affixed his signature in the form of a squiggle and said “Terrible things, computers. Here you are a male and it has called you a female.” I agreed with him and took my ID card and the ticket back from him and that was the end of the story.”
During my recent trips to the South of India, I had a couple of misadventures with the Indian Railways.
To start with, I was unable to reserve my seat on a train from Bengaluru to Chennai either directly online or through an online travel agent because, the Indian Railways reservation system has blacklisted my name for some strange reason. I am told that it is most likely because my account with them has been dormant for many years now. Others including my sister Padmini, too confirm that this happens when one does not use the system for a long period of time.
I therefore requested a friend in Bengaluru to physically go to the station and book the ticket which he kindly did. Unfortunately however, he failed to check the hard copy of the ticket before couriering it to me to reach me before I left Pune. On receipt I found that my gender had been entered as Female!
You have to know somethings about the Indian Railways to understand the horror I felt on finding myself classified as a Female. The IR is a government department under the charge of a full time Minister in the Central Government of India. It is therefore highly bureaucratic and as with other bureaucracies, open to misuse of authority. If a ticket examiner had decided to make my life miserable, this was a perfect opportunity, which he would have considered as a blessing from his favourite God.
On arrival at Bengaluru I rushed to the main railway station to see if the ticket could be altered to avoid my being offloaded and was directed to the Assistant Station Superintendent. In that office there were two worthies sitting at empty desks doing nothing. The first one, a male, I went to was seated immediately to my left as I entered the room. He was very polite and asked me what the problem was and on learning what it was, promptly yelled to the other person, a lady sitting across the room to solve the problem. I took myself over to the lady and handed over the ticket and she scrutinised it and the following discussion took place;
Lady: “Are you Ramana Rajgopaul?”
Me: “Yes Madam, I am indeed Ramana Rajgopaul.
Lady: “But you are not a female!”.
Me: “Yes Madam, I indeed am not, as you can see.”
Lady: “So what is the problem?”
Me: “I would like to ensure that I am not offloaded from the train due to this misrepresentation and would appreciate your amending the ticket to make me a Male.”
Lady: “That is not possible sir. This is an e-ticket and we cannot access the computer to edit such mistakes.”
Me: “So, what do I do?”
Lady: “Have you got some identification proof with you?”
Me: “Yes, my Income Tax Permanent Account Number Card, my driving license and if need be, I can carry my passport too.”
Lady: “Please show me what you have now with you.”
Me: Produced the PAN Card and the Driving License.
Lady: :Good! It is clear that you are not a female. All that you have to do is to show this to the ticket examiner on board the train.”
Me: “Supposing he refuses to accept and offloads me?”
Lady: “Don’t worry Sir. This happens all the time and all TEs are quite used to seeing these mistakes. He won’t offload you.”
Me: “Just suppose he does, what do I do?”
Lady: “Come back here and submit a written complaint about the whole matter.”
Me: “Thank you very much Madam. It is a great relief to know that there is a complaint mechanism that I can use by returning to Bengaluru from wherever I am offloaded which will give me some relief.”
Lady: “No mention. It is my duty.”
I duly boarded the train on the due date and after about an hour into the journey, the TE did come and asked for the ticket and this is what transpired between the two of us.
TE: Sir, you are not a female.”
Me: No, I am most certainly not!”
TE: Have you got some ID with you?”
I produced my PAN card.
He took a pen from his pocket and circled the ‘female’ entry, wrote ‘Male’ inside the circle, affixed his signature in the form of a squiggle and said “Terrible things, computers. Here you are a male and it has called you a female.” I agreed with him and took my ID card and the ticket back from him and that was the end of the story.
My regular readers will recollect my fascination for the railways. As a traveling salesman before I got kicked upstairs and could fly, I have traveled throughout India by trains, and two of the trains that I used fairly regularly were the Frontier Mail from Bombay and back to Bombay from various places, or from Delhi to the Punjab and back; and the Grand Trunk Express. The very name Frontier Mail was enough to bring up many stories of the Frontier, now being called the trouble spots of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Here is what the Indian Railway Fan Club says about the Frontier Mail. “Frontier Mail
The Frontier Mail was flagged off on Sep. 1, 1928, from Colaba Terminus, the main station on the BB&CI (later Western Railway). It was a replacement for the earlier Mumbai-Peshawar Mail. In winter (Sep. – Dec.), the Frontier Mail started from Ballard Pier (Mole Station) to connect with P&O steamships; this is the portion referred to as the “Duplicate” section of the Frontier Mail in old railway schedules and articles.
Leaving from Mole Station the train ran for a short while on tracks of the Bombay Port Railway and the GIPR via Bandra Jn. finally reaching its home tracks of the BB&CI Railway. For the rest of the year the train terminated at Colaba, but a separate train ran to Ballard Pier for the steamer connection. There were also times when the train ran this extra bit on some days of the week alternating with the normal route.
The train’s route took it through Baroda, Ratlam, Mathura, Delhi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and finally to Peshawar. (The section beyond Delhi was run by the North Western Railway as train No. 3.) Peshawar was close to the frontier of British India in those days, hence the name of the train. It used to be the fastest long-distance train in the subcontinent.
Originally the BB&CI introduced it to rival the Punjab Limited of the GIPR, which also went from Bombay to Peshawar. The train had a reputation for being unusually punctual. Originally the rake had 5 coaches and a luxury dining car cum lounge car. As a prestige train of the BB&CI, the train offered plush conveniences on board, and the passengers had access to luxurious retiring rooms at stations along the way. It had air-cooled cars (using ice blocks) from about 1934.
After Independence, it went only up to Amritsar, via Delhi, from Bombay. The train has now [1996] been renamed “Golden Temple Mail”.
And this about the Grand Trunk Express:
“The Grand Trunk Express
This train, affectionately known as the ‘GT’ started running in 1929 just after the construction of the Kazipet-Balharshah section, which was the last link in the Delhi-Madras route. Initially it ran from Peshawar to Mangalore and took about 104 hours, one of the longest train routes. Later this service was changed to Lahore-Mettupalaiyam. In 1930 it reached its present status while running between Delhi and Madras.
As a prestigious train, it was one of the few to have the early methods of air cooling by ice blocks. It also carried a parcel van for urgent consignments. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the train used to run with a completely air-conditioned rake (First AC and AC Chair Car) on two days of the week, and with its usual rake on other days, and hence was sometimes known as the AC/GT Express. The train had a 21-coach rake in the 1980s, later extended to 22 and finally 24 coaches. Its first-class coaches were of the corridor type with extra large windows. The GT’s coaches (along with those of other premier trains in the 1970s) also had noticeably better suspension as well.”
Both these trains were part of the undivided India before partition between India and Pakistan, and many refugees in post partition India can tell stories about these two trains and what they did during the partition killings too.
The railways in both the countries were of vital importance for movement of goods and passengers and in India they continue to be even now. For instance, as this is being published, I am on my way to the South of India and two legs of my journey including an overnight one, totaling 32 hours will be by train.
Here is an image of a Pakistani train that was published some years ago showing passengers leaving Karachi to their various homes for Ramzan Id.
It therefore has come as a great disappointment to me when I read about the condition of the Pakistani Railways. If the contents of the article are true, Pakistan will be in greater trouble than it has been perceived to be, as it will seriously affect the movement of goods and passengers within Pakistan.
