The wide and expansive Indian railway network, operates to every corner of this amazing but somewhat insane and chaotic country. The whole network is overseen by the Indian Ministry for Railways, and with 64,000km of track and 7,083 stations, makes the network is one of the largest in the world. With figures like these you can begin to comprehend its size, but the one number that just blows me away, is the sheer number of people who work for the system. At last count the total number of employees working for the Indian Railways is now estimated to be over 1.5 million (more than the population of many small nations), so you can begin to appreciate it’s colossal size, and importance to the people of India.
Some say the building of the Indian rail network actually helped forge this nation from a past of fractured and isolated regions, into it’s current state. With the tracks opening pathways to allow goods and people to move freely throughout this expansive and diverse land. For any traveler making their way to India, sooner or later you’ll have to prepare yourself for some tough, and hard fought journeys riding the rails. During my time in India in the mid nineties, I took many interesting journeys throughout India’s rail network, with each having it’s own story to tell.
Every Journey on an Indian Train Has it’s Own Story.
There were moments where you could just sit back and take in your surroundings, soak it all in and enjoy your journey. Although experiences such as this were few and far between. Other times your patience was pushed to boiling point, with the hoards of people pushing and shoving their way past you, both on the stations and inside the carriages.
The only way you can get any real peace on an Indian train is to climb up onto the roof.
A great experience I had was the day we were heading towards Gokarna, to meet some friends and chill out on the beaches on the west coast. Liza and I boarded a train at Varanasi station for what was to be a long and tiresome journey. A few hours into the trip, I went for a stroll between carriages. I got talking to a Swiss traveller at the back of one of the carriages, where I noticed a steel ladder leading up onto the roof.
I suggested to him that we should go up and sit on the roof, to check out the view. We spent about an hour or so on the roof of the train, the wind blowing in my hair as we hammered along, occasionally getting freaked out by some low hanging cables. (this was much to Liza’s annoyance, as she had no idea where I was at the time)
Riding on the roof of the carriage is the only time where you can get any real peace on an Indian train. The one thing I wasn’t really prepared for whilst in India, was the complete disregard for your personal space. As the train approaches a platform, total chaos would sometimes evolve as people scramble for a position to board. India is crazy enough at the best of times, but throw in a train with limited seating and large travel distances, and you’ve got a recipe for most people to suffer ‘a serious sense of humor failure’. I’m hoping things have now improved somewhat, with the aid of computerized seating and better communications between stations, but my guess is they haven’t.
There were times when you had to completely leave your morals at the front entry to the station and actually fight for a seat, and I mean fight for it!
More often than not, boarding a train in India was more akin to a rugby scrum, and if tickets were scarce sometimes all hell would break loose. Having a ticket was also not guarantee enough for you to board the train, it basically just gave you entrance to the platform, from where the real game would begin.
Fighting for Your Seat Was a Common Occurrence
It took some time to adjust to this dog eat dog, law of the jungle attitude, but I did get it in the end, I had to. When the train approached, Liza and I would put our packs on, and go into battle mode. It was a take no prisoners attitude, as we would push our way through the hoards of young men, old frail ladies, mothers with babies and the odd beggar trying to fleece a couple of rupee from me before I departed. Once aboard we would then claim our seats, and not budge until the train began to move.
Some may judge me harshly for these actions, but without this approach you wouldn’t get anywhere. There were many times early on, where I did take the polite tourist approach. This would leave us stranded at a station in the middle of know where for another 16 or so hours, until the next train came by that was heading to our chosen destination. This was life traveling in 2nd and 3rd classes in the 1990’s. The life of a budget traveller, trying to squeeze as much as we could from every rupee.
Your Thoughts and Comments
Been to India?, Whats the railway system like today? Has the system improved or gotten worse, and are you still confronted with the madness described above?
