Train to Delhi

Prologue

Travel is a necessity and routine in modern life. Travel by train is definitely a necessity as well as routine in most parts of India. Whether routine or not, one has to travel by train once in a while for variety of reasons. There are trains of all types in India; fast trains, slow trains, super fast trains, super slow trains, long distance trains, short distance shuttle trains, fully air-conditioned trains, fully non-air conditioned trains as well as goods trains. Your travel in any type of these trains may depend more on their availability on a particular route than on your capacity to pay. But there are trains, and people travel in them all around. Stories have been written on trains as well as on memories associated with them.

Every travel in a train in India can generate a story. It’s always entertaining, especially if you travel in a not so fast and not so luxurious train on a not so a popular route. One such travel is available to Delhi, the capital of the country, from a not so far city Bareilly, a city of a million populations located just 250 kilometres from Delhi. On paper there is a convenient early morning daily Intercity Express, from Bareilly to New Delhi and back. It is meant to be very suitable for persons travelling one way or to and fro on the same day. Its importance increases manifold, as there is no other convenient train in the later hours of the day to Delhi, and most of the long haul trains to Delhi pass Bareilly after midnight. This train on paper takes five hours to Delhi, while some other may take seven to eight hours for that short a distance.

The situation is more complicated as the road alternative is not very comfortable either. The last eighty kilometres of road towards Bareilly is yet to be four laned. The traffic has increased manifold on that road, but due to gross neglect by various governments the size or the width of the road hasn’t increased. This result in long columns of traffic moving at turtle speed, and the volume of traffic renders any overtaking manoeuvre life threatening. Moving in traffic at a slower speed may also not solve the problem as there are four always closed railways crossing, where traffic jams can be four to five kilometres long; not to mention the jams caused by stranded heavily overloaded trucks or tractor trolleys with broken axels. This conveniently makes a four hour distance into a six to eight hours travel, if not more. The airstrip at Bareilly is not yet opened for Civil Traffic as yet, though private Airlines have shown interest in operating from there.

That leaves one with no other choice but to endure a story in the popular Intercity Express. Popular because, despite all odds, it goes overcrowded baring two Air-conditioned Chair Cars. In these two coaches you can travel with some comfort especially in summers, though the air conditioning may function only when the train is moving owing to the vintage of these coaches. One has to book in advance to travel in these coaches. The other coaches in the train are second class seating. Bulk of these supposed to be for travellers also with proper advanced reservation, ensuring them a place on one of the cramped seat, shared by two others. Few second class coaches in general category are open to all, with no rules or regulations. Though travelling in reserved second class coaches reveals, that they too physically end up opened to all, again with no rules or regulations, adding lots of spice to the travel stories in this train.

The Story

I became subject of one such story when I had to move to Delhi at a short notice. As there was no reservation available in the Air-conditioned Chair Car class, I booked myself in a second seating reserved coach, finding that more than half the accommodation was available. When I reached the train early morning at 4:45 am, passing the better Air-conditioned Chair Cars with envy, I did find most of the second class reserved seats empty. There was huge number of people rushing towards the unreserved coaches at the both ends of the train. I found my coach and the seat, which was near the window. I was not finding anything wrong. There were no excess people, and coach appeared to be fairly OK from common Indian second-class travel standard.

The peace of the train and the coach started disturbing with the fast approaching time of departure. More people started pouring in, and struggle for leftover places started. Newly arrived passengers were squeezing into the left over vacant places, and some were dislodging wrongly seated unreserved persons from their reserved seats. The dislodged ones were trying in vain to look for squeezing into some other cramped seats. There were requests and heated brawls to accommodate a fourth person, who was not willing to leave his prized possession, into the seats meant uncomfortably for three. There were even arguments over the status of the reservations, the ones without reservations claiming that there was no need for reservation for any second class seat in this train. All the drama which went on in last few minutes of the train’s halt in Bareilly de-motivated me to get a cup of tea or a newspaper, as I did not want my window seat to be taken over by a newcomer or a recently dislodged person.

Train started bang on time at 4:55 am. That was a relief as it did ensure that there will be no more reserved or unreserved passengers arriving in the coach. The seats were all full and there were fairly good number of people standing in the aisle as well as near the doors and the toilets, and their number was not big enough to call the coach as overcrowded. But the train had to stop at twelve more stations before reaching New Delhi. More crowds were expected from at least first eight of them, this became known to me in my few talks with the fellow passenger sitting next to me. He said the train will be jam packed by the time it leaves the third station en-route, after which it will simply not be possible to even go to the toilet. This gentleman was also travelling on a valid reserved ticket against the seat on which he was sitting. But his logic for getting the reserved ticket was different. He said that it is always not possible to buy a normal unreserved ticket from current booking counters due to heavy rush and long queues. A reserved ticket costs more and may lose its actual utility after an hour of the journey, but it saves from agony of coming too early in the morning and struggle over the ticket counters. An excellent idea!

The first two stations brought more passengers, presumably all with unreserved tickets. There was usual chaos at the station with passengers running both ways to find a coach with vacant seat or enough places to adjust. They did get adjusted in at least my coach, but leaving hardly a space to move. I thought to use the toilet before whatever moving space which was still left gets blocked too. Asking my fellow passenger to guard my prized seat I got up and made my way to the toilet, brushing almost every one in the almost choked aisle. It was difficult and full of annoyance to make that move. More annoyance came on reaching the toilets. They were clean but one had the window missing and the other one had no wash basin. Across the vestibule in the neighbouring coach I could see the broken door of one of the toilets. I had no choice to use the toilet, the one with proper window, and later wash my hands in the other. I struggled back to my seat which was duly guarded by my neighbour.

The third halt at Moradabad was longer than the other two, but that brought longer rows of new passengers struggling to get in. The brawls for occupying the hardly available places in the aisle and near the doors increased, with already present passengers cursing the new comers and vice versa. Still many people were unaffected, basically those without reserved tickets and already habitual frequent travellers. They have seen these dramas many a times and were really not bothered. Now most of the cramped seats barely suitable to seat three were having four persons. A request came to the person sitting on the aisle side of our bunk too. The seated persons refused, but gave in after repeated requests cum warnings of the newly arrived passenger. The newcomer parked a portion of his buttocks, without thanking, on whatever little space was made available to him. He instead claimed of having done favour to the other person declaring that people from other coming stations will manhandle anyone not listening to them.

The train moved from there and was halting at a station every half an hour, bringing more people, more chaos and more drama. I was surprised to see that the coach which was jam packed at Moradabad kept on accommodating more and more people, as if the space was being generated from inside. There was no real fight or manhandling of anyone, though some arguments did take place. The passengers from each new station appeared to be more talkative than the previous one. There were old people, children and even women standing sandwiched in overcrowded aisles. Some people had made their way into the legroom between two seats facing each other. One came in between ours too. No one protested, which would have been of no use in any case. He was continuously talking to other passengers, both to known and unknown to him. He was complaining in his talk targeted at seated travellers that they don’t have decency to offer their seats to old persons and women stranded in aisles, even though they were in all possibility not holding the proper reserved tickets. In fact most these people like himself were not even with second class express train tickets, but were with tickets meant for local or passenger trains. Some even wouldn’t have had that too and were simply the part of the crowd.

I really did not bother about all that, but I was definitely bothered about my travel bag which was placed under my seat, as my station was approaching. Because of this gentleman standing in the legroom there was no chance for me to shift one of my leg or request same to any other seated fellow passengers to pull out my bag. When I unsuccessfully tried to remove it, the standing man spoke and asked me not to worry as the train is running before time and will be halting at the outer signal for twenty minutes at least and then at least ten minutes at my station. Ghaziabad, the station where I was to get down was the first in the National Capital Territory of Delhi and adjoining suburbs. And it did happen. Some people got down at the outer signal and in the yard where the train halted once more, relieving some space in the aisle as well for the gentleman standing in front of my seat allowing me to take out my travel bag. He narrated more information, relieving me further of my worries regarding getting off the train, saying that the crowd which got down in the yard has in fact gone ahead to the platform to catch other trains especially to Old Delhi station, while some others would have saved few minutes by catching the trains leaving before this one. He also declared that at Ghaziabad there will be people only detraining and no one would entrain.

As the train moved again, I left my seat, which was quickly occupied by this always speaking gentleman, which meant that still it will remain to be occupied by four persons instead of three. That was not my concern any more. The train crawled into the platform, and as soon as it stopped I got out quickly with the flow of persons getting out. On looking back the occupancy inside the coach did appear to be better than what it was before reaching Moradabad. But that was going to help me no way now. The train had reached outskirts of this station twenty minutes early, but did enter the platform fifteen minutes late giving way to other faster moving train on Delhi-Kolkatta corridor. It did stop there for over ten minutes, after that I could see it moving from the parking where I was getting into the car which had come to pick me up.

Epilogue

It was a tiring journey, sandwiched on a straight back hard bunk, leaving barely any space even to breath. Though travelling second class, one was entitled a decent seat, with other simple amenities, but these were not there. The situation is same in many other short distance so called Express trains. The passengers in each of these trains, with or without reserved tickets must be generating revenue for at least three trains while travelling in one. In fact with that a condition the ticket cost should have been reduced to one third. But than if one could endure the journey, the story came free of cost.

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