Musings on a train journey ( real time stuff ! )

What is a trip and what is a journey ? Does going back home by train make a journey ? Does "experimental" travel on a narrow gauge train from a non descript place qualify as trip ? Let me leave that judgement to my friends.

When I travel alone undertake personal travel, I travel sleeper class ( the three tier sleeper of yesteryears ). I am in the train right now about an hour away from Delhi having boarded the train last evening ( Thursday ) from Nagpur. Nagpur, being a in between station on the Delhi Chennai , Kolkata Mumbai routes with no express trains commencing fro m here to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata etc, fact remains it is easier to get confirmed sleeper class tickets than being on tender hooks till last minutes with wait listed "vaathaanukoolith sreni" tickets.

I was planning to proceed to Delhi on 05/09 evening and that was my intent as well. I had booked the ticket some days in advance. I had applied for couple of days off. As a matter of precaution, I checked the ticket last morning only to discover that I had booked to travel by Sampat Kranthi Express at 17:15 hours the same evening. On line status indicated tickets on Friday were next impossible including "tickets" ( Nagpur Bhopal and Bhopal Delhi in the same train under different quotas ).

24 hour clock looks okay on mobile handset but get tricky when in print. I repeatedly kept checking the timing on ticket , lest it changed from 17:15 to 15:15 hours and left me on the lurch.

I was at the station by 16:45 hours and trains such as Rajdhani, Sampath Kranti etc are given pride of place en route to Delhi- Platform no 1. If one hangs around Nagpur station for couple of hours looking at the boards with instructions, recorded announcements, impromptu announcement, TV monitor displays an ticker tapes, one would definitely come to know about half ancient history of India- Mahakoshal, Raptisagar, Ahilyanagari, Gondwana.... the list goes on.

A cursory glance indicated five trains were to pull into platform no 1 towards Delhi in an hour. The monitor showed train formation of all trains in all directions one after the other and the recorded announcement also followed this "helpful" pattern. The ticker tape showed train formation in a different sequence including those arriving five hours hence.

Our train did not pull in at 17:05 hours. A Rajdhani had left for Delhi. All the visual aids continued to show the train on time. The station cleaning work has been outsourced. Some youngsters in uniforms, clad in shoes , wearing gloves and florescent jackets got on to the track and started gathering the wrappers and garbage dumped by the elite passengers. One of the cleaners had a long chat on mobile standing on the track and leaning on the platform.

In the plethora of announcements which was flowing like loud staccato songs from FM channel, there was a feeble announcement- Sampath Kranti Expresss delayed by 15 minutes. By this time , I had managed to catch the rake formation thrice and found that the sleeper coaches were in the front. The platform was packed with passengers with reservation and casual travellers for trains scheduled to leave till 18:00 hours. Sampath Kranthi was to be followed by Raptisagar Express- an experiment by Railways to convert passenger stations to express train stops.

The train no was suddenly displayed at regular intervals all along the station on a small ticker with coach no. I was were my coach S5 would stop.

Nagpur being a curved platform, the train pulls in slowly. Mobile phones, youtube, facebook etc have brought in a lot of excitement but the excitement people feel when their train pulls in is something else. Everybody got up the way the VIPs and spectators in Republic Day parade get up when President's cavalcade stops and he alights to be greeted by defence minister etc.

The train coming from Bangalore, seem to have got up from the wrong side of the bed. All the airconditioned coaches were in the front and sleeper class compartments were at the back. Most of the us had to walk considerable distance to get into our compartments. Since it was a superfast train and "does not appear packed", a lot of short distance travellers surged in not realising it was it not Raptisagar Express.

Being off season, there was no RAC and due course, some who had boarded for Delhi with a ticket bought at current booking got berths allotted. The TTE's dug out was in our bay. 

Sampath Kranthi Express from Bangalore is not a daily train. Once the train left Nagpur, passengers approached him ( some of them had reservation ) saying that they had mistaken the train to be Raptisagar Express and wanted to know the next stop. TTE told them that next stop was Bhopal , 350 km away ! Not trusting the TTE, they asked the smartly dressed catering guys from pantry car( they wear a black uniform with a long apron like front with "Meals on Wheels" insignia )  who confirmed the same.

A moulavi  with his wife sat with us. He realised they had boarded the wrong train as soon as the train left Nagpur. He rang somebody and told him," Beta, apne hum ko Sampath Kranthi Express me chadaathiya. Yeh gaadi Bhopal thak rukhe ga nahi."  I suspect the response from the other end was a hearty chuckle as he continued said sternly," mazaak math karo !". I felt he was entitled to mouth a set of profanities at who ever had put them in the predicament. May be he got a glance of himself on the wash basin mirror ( I was on berth no 5 in S5 coach ) and must have made a mental note to unload them on a one to one basis at the earliest opportunity.

I wanted to helpful. Knowing the speed of Raptisagar Express, it would be two nights before they get anywhere near Lucknow. I told the gentleman to ask his person to tell the TTE in Raptisagar Express ( which was at the station. When maulavi rang, this guy confirmed the train was in the station and that was what upset maulavi further ) with appropriate encouragement to hold the seats till Bhopal lest they were forced to travel in general compartment. Maulavi told me they were travelling to Betul, 100 km away from Nagpur. The train's speed used to irritate them. The train used to slow down near some stations giving some hope but used to run full clip while passing them.

Sampath Kranthi Express on 04/09 late evening disgorged a number of "inadvertant" tourists in Bhopal.

Coming to the train formation, the engine would have made Mamta Bannerjee cry. It has been pinched from some Duranto Express formation- a tasteless collage of all colours of paints in railway stores.

Our compartment appeared old from outside but the inside has been done up in June'2014 at ICF coaching factory ( the other division of ICF is shell which is the steel body making unit ). There are two charging sockets each in bay and the switches for fans, light etc look good - I got an impression Railways forgot to draw up its specification. The light above the wash basin was a CFL one. The train had bio- toilets and when the train stopped at Jhansi late in the night, I could see somebody pocking the underbelly of the toilets and connecting a hose. As the night wore on, the stench in the toilet ( I should admit there was no  visual manifestation ) rose and could have knocked an elephant flat in one breath. But in the morning, there was a indeterminate ( a combo of Pheneol, Lifebuoy, Hamam ) but tolerable smell.

The ladder like contraption has a pleasing black matt finish. So are black strips struck to the stiffeners holding upper berths in place. Every bay has a blue night lamp in the corridor- it has berth numbers written on either sides with upper, lower, side etc. So the passengers boarding late in the night need not wake up the wrong people. But there is a catch here. The unions in ICF seem to affiliated to DMK and ADMK. There is no Hindi on this night lamps.

There were  water bottle sockets for every berth and also a Samsung phone like pouch which is an invitation to lose one's purse and mobile. Side berths have latches to keep their alignments in place when the seat backs are dropped down for the night.

Railways seem to have 200 year patent for fans and taps. The taps are friendly so far but would certainly develop rheumatism in due course testing the wrist strengths of the users. If Guantanemo Bay officials want to secure the cells further, all that they need for inspiration are some cages of the fans in railway coaches. Even centuries after scrapping, the fan blades would still b struck inside the cages.

Railways has pruned manpower on trains drastically. One TTE has to take care of 10 sleeper coaches and another all the seven a/c coaches. The TTE said at the starting station, there would be one more TTE. The TTE looked more like a University exams evaluator. He had so many bundles of paper. He would vanish for some time with a couple of bunches tucked inside his blazer, return and replace them with another set. The guy had to keep at  it for four hours continuously. By the time he finished, we were half an hour away from Bhopal. He had to a lot writing ( I forgot to ask him whether pens were free issue from stores ) to do. He said it was very demanding during peak season. There is constant pressure to cut down TTE strength further. 

He said over the last couple of decades, ladies form 25 % of TTE team. Though some of them are of higher rank, they have difficulty travelling in the night. As a result they end up as ticket collectors at station while young Ticket Collectors end up travelling and working in trains.

I feel Railway will provide TTEs with Simputers before long. This reduce drudgery and effort spent in reconciliation

Order was issued promoting our TTE as head TTE from Nov'13 but the promotion has not been put into effect. He said there  was a move to outsource railway ticket booking. The staff there are now being transferred to offices as clerical staff. With online booking catching on, there has been perceptible drop in counter sale of advance booking tickets all over the country.

Yes, the train is in the vicinity of Hazrat Nizamuddin station.