Train Travel

 

I love travelling by train in my mind it is the most relaxing way to travel, there is something about the fact that there are no traffic jams, few breakdowns and actually barring a couple of delays here and there very little that can go wrong.  I like the fact that it is fast, clean and there is food readily available and that unlike a plane there are no departure lounges that or check in desks that insist that you are there an hour or two before your journey. 

I was however unsure as to what to expect of travelling by train in India, I have seen the many news reports and documentaries that are frequently shown of hundreds of people clinging onto the sides of passenger trains and if this was to be my experience whilst I welcomed it I did wonder how well I would cope for the six hours that it would take to travel between Delhi and Deradoun a town/city to the north which rests just below the foothills of the Himalayas.

Delhi train station it's self is one of the largest that I have ever seen comparable to any in London and I am glad that we had a guide to show us to the right train and platform as unlike most other places we have visited here in India the train station whilst it does have sporadic information in English it is predominantly Hindi, this is even the same on the seating plans on the side of the train carriages and without help we would have been completely unable to fathom out where we were to sit. 

My fears of a carriage with hundreds of people crammed in were not to be realised. We were sat in a carriage not unlike any of the trains that we have back home in the UK except that the train was full, every carriage, every compartment again as everywhere there were people and the colours and smells of peoples home made food was abundant and yet another assault on the senses at 5am!  I wondered for a while if these scenes of over the top transport where something born of Hollywood and TV myth until a little out of the station we passed another train that bore these remarkable hangers on and then another train and another.

Rail transport in India is a colossus it is something to be remarked at, the scale of the undertaking is hard to comprehend in anyway.  It is known as the 'lifeline of the nation' and is all controlled under one management system the largest in the world of this classification having 7500+ stations, over 40,000 carriages and an employee base over 1.6 million people! 

This huge amount of people working upon the railways is obvious when you see at least in the carriages that we are in the service that we received.  Barely out of the station a flask of tea is placed in your hands, then a breakfast tray moments later, then a snack tray and so it go's on the emphasis is to really look after the passengers and this is certainly achieved. 

Passenger safety is also quite apparent upon the train that we are using, we notice armed guards routinely walking up and down the carriages mostly carrying a pistol of some description then once in a while there is a guard with a submachine gun or even assault rifle, I am unsure if this is a trait upon all services or just this train as we are heading towards and almost upon the Pakistan border.

Throughout our five hour journey there is a huge variance in landscape whilst moslty flat until we approach Deradoun where the foothills appear from the haze almost as an apparition until this point though India has been spread out in all of it's variance and glory as we passed from the modern splendour of central Delhi, through slums who's appalling conditions are still hard to believe or comprehend in today's society, through farmland where the corn now ready for harvest is hand gathered, passed highways, dusty roads, through marshlands and lush pastures to deserts and forests and every variance in between.

 
Travelling by train is always interesting but this has got to have been one of the best journeys that I have ever taken and yes dangerous as it may have been I had to have my moment of standing on the outside of the train and experiencing "authentic indian rail travel"  O.k to be honest I did wait until we were nearly stopped but still an experience that I doubt I will ever re-create.   Perhaps the only thing missing from this journey was a huge delay brought about by an elephant on the track apparently it is not at all uncommon.