An Ordeal on Indian Railways Thousands Face Daily

An earlier note in this blog had some suggestions for the Indian Railways and one of them has already been implemented soon after the dynamic new Railway Minister of India, the Right Honorable Piyush Goyal took charge. Thanks have been recorded to him at the end of the note as an update. This note is on a different matter that also needs urgent attention of the Honorable Minister to save Indians from physical damage and huge hurt they undergo daily because of one of their practices. It is best understood from my personal experience two days ago, recorded next.

I needed to make a trip from Delhi to Jaipur on the evening of the 23^rd of this month.  Looking up the new improved website of Indian Railways I found that there was a vacant lower berth in sleeper class of train number 14659 from Delhi to Jaisalmer. I chose the boarding destination as Delhi Cantonment since the station was closer to where I was staying. The train had a scheduled two minute stop here and my seat was in coach number S1. So far so good, but now the ordeal begins.

On some earlier trips, I had discovered that locating your coach on platforms that do not have display boards can be tough because trains are long and walking up and down along its length to locate it is not easy, especially if one has luggage. This platform had no such display boards. Fortunately this time, I had just a small bag with wheels on it that could be dragged on the platform by pulling on a handle. I was nevertheless worried because the stop of two minutes sounded too little to locate a bogey.

My eyes were on the train as it pulled in and the engine passed by. I looked at train coach numbers on a small plate in the middle of coaches, some not quite clear and spotted coach S8 when the train stopped. I began running along with my bag towards other coaches and saw S7, S6, S5, and then the Ss disappeared and there were some other coaches of which I could not read the number clearly. While running with my eyes on the coaches I did not spot a bump in the platform and tripped over as my bag flew to one side. I got up anyway and continued running. The train began to move. My godson who had accompanied me shouted get into this one anyway. I jumped in to the first door of the now moving train almost falling off once again but got in. It was a general coach, packed neck to neck, but I found a place to stand near the bathroom. My godson had once mentioned how his smart phone and purse had been pick- pocketed in a general bogey a month ago because it was very crowded but some money and original IDs were saved because they were in his bag. Worried about mine, I somehow managed to shift all that into my bag in the nick of time and stood firmly with my bag squeezed between the toilet door and my legs.

My intention was to get down at the next station which was Gurgaon and make another brave attempt at locating my bogie. There were others like me and someone said that after S5 they have general coaches then some more S coaches later where S1 was likely to be. There was an old couple trapped similarly who had reservation in a S2 coach and the lady squeezed in the coach was sweating profusely. She too intended to find the right coach at the next spot. Around eight minutes before Gurgaon, the train stopped on the tracks perhaps due to some signal and the couple decided to get down. I advised them against it saying that the track with stone grit was rough. She may fall. Moreover the train may start anytime and they would be left in the wilderness. They nevertheless got down and as warned the old lady fell flat on the track and bruised herself badly. They nevertheless got up and moved on. Hopefully they found their coach.

In my case I got down at Gurgaon and found my coach and thanked the Lord while also informing my Godson that I was now safe. He had been worried and had been calling repeatedly. In my coach I heard harrowing tales similar to mine and how the TT was asking for a bribe from those in wrong coaches. He let several unreserved person into our unreserved coach similarly for interim destinations. At long last, the train more than an hour late, arrived in Jaipur and I breathed a sigh of relief. But my mind was pained at the thought of that lady falling flat face down on the stone grit, getting up, blood dripping from her face and thousands of others who face the same problem daily day after day, month after month on the blessed Indian Railway and decided to write this note with a few suggestion that could ease the pain of thousands.

Solutions

Are there any solutions to this problem? Short of platform display board that exists on large stations to indicate coach locations, some other simpler suggestions come to mind.

1. It is easy to install large removable placard boards with coach number near coach doors ( each door) as displayed in the figure constructed for this note
2. The train stoppage time could be increased to at least the time it takes to walk from one end of it to another
3. There could be a single display board on the platform at least displaying the order in which the coaches are arranged of an arriving train.

There are just some quick thoughts but my impression is that officials of railways are not so stupid that they cannot find solutions nor are they sadists who wish to torture and injure Indian citizens daily. But it is possible that a group is corrupt and profit from the confusion and ensuing bribes. Greed and corruption is at the root of much that is wrong with our world.

The attention of the Honorable Railway Minister is drawn to the problem. Perhaps he could solve it and save ladies as old as his and our mothers from injuring themselves and bleeding on the tracks, perhaps day after day, year after year and older persons like me running on the platform with luggage and collapsing from cardiac arrest. If the minister wishes to know my age, it is the same as his brother in law Rajni who is a good friend because we were class fellows at IIT Delhi.