All through school and college, travelling through traverses of India rail travel proved one of the only ways to capture the miles across the country. The other way mostly was by road driving through the southern states mostly, with my brother and I plonked in the back seat. Rail travel always meant more people, crazy locales and activities that allowed kids to move freely, take a walk whenever we please not to mention all the hanging by the monkey bars! Now with a little kid in my precinct I was just reminded of how much fun train travel can be. The British are much lauded for laying the extensive railways. From the toy train in Shimla (there is nothing you like about it, except being laid in wood) to the Vista dome in Karnataka, to the efficient Vande Bharat, the good old Rajdhani and Shatabdis, now with the Link Hoffman Bush coaches and finally the Palace on Wheels, there is quite something for everyone.
When my maternal grandfather was posted in the Railways as an Accountant General he officially travelled in coaches that were fitted like a home. And with him I had the fortune of travelling in those, that could only be exciting for a child. Literally it opens up thinking on what a room should be like or what a train should be like. When on Vande Bharat one is quite well fed with food brought in every hour or so, in the older coaches the charm of train travel is very much intact. If people are not the forte then first class travel is totally recommended, off late I find myself not wanting to indulge in small conversations so I simply stick my nose in a book. But my 6 year old is quite a chatty one and soon we find ourselves about others plans, where they are heading and what they’ve been up to, throw in some parenting tips or life goals that everyone seems to be giving away for free these days!
Indian Railways is upgrading yet it’s holding on to the coaches that were running earlier that reach smaller stations. The quaint stations with three or less platforms reach the inner parts of India, the Bharat that is the soul of the country. Recently I watched a movie called Laapata Ladies that also provides a look into this inner India that is so simple and aims for similar things in life that binds us all as one. While the platforms can do a lot better, a great number of platforms are revamping to be sustainable achieving LEED ratings of gold or platinum. While the air-conditioning for the coaches blast off, the heat generated by them are dumped on the platforms making the platforms quite hot and chaotic. (This is probably the case in our cities, with CSIR incentivising not using an iron, but more on that later) The overbridges aren’t a really enough and I’d like underground walkways a lot better!! When flying has become a lot more convenient and economical the astronomical impact it has on the planet is undeniable. Anyone remember how Thunberg took a solar powered boat to the Climate Summit to make a point? If only the Indian railways could be solar powered and the platform connections could be subterranean, the otherwise comparatively sustainable mode of travel would win even bigger.
Vedasri Siddamsetty 