Longest Indian Train Ride

[caravanman]

Hi,

Just found this report on India's longest train ride, with an audio link too...

Vivek Express

Ed

 

[jis]

Whenever I read a social/cultural article in the Economist, it always occurs to me that their articles on economics are much better written and better informed.

Unfortunately a bit of the Raj inspired patronizing still shows through.... Oh well. In the process, unfortunately the writer misses a lot of memorable images from a typical rail journey in India.... the world unto itself that one finds at each station. The numerous changes of locale, vegetation, language and culture as one journeys through various parts of India - something that may be quite unnoticeable for one busy comparing everything to back home in England. . But still it is a reasonable article IMHO.

A few thoughts that passed through my mind as I read the article....

On the train board the name of the train appears in three scripts (English, Devnagari and Bengali/Assamese), but the destinations appear in only English script, not an uncommon thing highlighting the fact the English is as much a lingua franca in India as in almost any English speaking country - but still it is a language that only the learned and middle class and above are familiar with. But what is odd is the total absence of any South Indian scripts on a train that terminates deep in South India! Of course if they had to cover all language script areas that this train runs through they'd require a board that covers the entire side of a car! Let's see Assamese/Bengali, Devnagari, Oriya, Telegu, Tamil... did I I miss any? That is the wonder of "Unity in Diversity" in India..... a concept that Europeans are mightily struggling with these days.

The schism between south and north is always quite noticeable as characterized by the comment of the southern conductor, never mind that this train hardly touch the "Hindi Cow Belt" (which of course the writer with his biases chooses to re-state as "Hindu Cow Belt"). Afterall the famous Deoband Madarsa, which is regarded as the origin of the Wahabi style Islamic fundamentalism, which has been greatly in the news is also located in the same alleged "Hindu Cow Belt", go figure. Somehow people have great difficulty getting their head around the fact that India has a much larger Muslim population than any other single country except one, and even that is not in the Middle East!

The statement about telephone service in India is quite true. Even my AT&T issued iPhone gets better signal in most places in India than it does in the prosperous suburbs of New York in New Jersey. I can never figure this one out. What has happened to the telephone service that used to be envy of the world 35 years back?

As for the type of people that ride trains in India, yes many of the upper middle class are flying more, but they are also taking the train more than they used to 25 years back. The result is that almost all LD trains have decent Airconditioned Sleeper service available now, which was not the case even in the 90s. As you walk the train from the GS (General Second Class) through SL (Sleeper), 3A (AC 3 Tier Sleeper) and 2A (AC 2 Tier Sleeper) to 1A (AC First Class on the few trains that have this service) you meet virtually every strata of Indian society on each train, and that in and of itself is an amazing experience. The mobility provided by Indian Railways plays a significant role in reduction of poverty by allowing people tot ravel inexpensively to where the jobs are, thus allowing them to bootstrap themselves upto the next economic level.

Anyway, those are the thoughts that passed through my mind, in no particular order as I read that article.

 

[user 1215]

I read that article, too. I can't believe that a 4-day train ride through the some of the most diverse terrain and socioeconomic zones of India could only muster up barely a page of "reporting". Though it may be subjectively arguable, "in summary, the north is cold, brown, dusty and full of people, whereas the south is warm, green, wet and full of people." is a travesty of missing the whole point. It doesn't even really seem like the author found much beauty in the ride.

This is a trip that I would be very much interested in taking. The article didn't help at all.

 

[Texan Eagle]

I have not read the whole article, will do so at leisure and add my comments about it, but one point in the meantime- Vivek Express is no doubt technically the longest train in India now, but somehow my bucket-list is still biased towards doing the end-to-end journey on the second longest train in India- the Himsagar Express running from Jammu in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. To me, that truly represents a cross-country travel more than Vivek Express. See the comparison of routes of the two trains here-

 

[Anderson]

On the phone service issue, I'll offer up what I call the "Cemex phenomenon": Late-adopting countries can often end up with better systems than early adopters because of the cost of building and then rebuilding the infrastructure or the trouble of taking down and replacing what is there (Cemex computerized their operations in the mid-1980s, well behind a lot of its competitors...but they waited long enough that they were also able to integrate the system from day one, giving them a big advantage over them). I'll point out a lot of bad highways in the Northeast as a sign of this: You've simply gotten stuck with bad alignments that were designed in the 1940s in places like Boston.

This carries over into electronics: You have companies (or college campuses, etc.) that are stuck with 20-30 year old phone systems because:

A) The existing system is barely sufficient; and

B) The capital cost of putting in a new one is high enough to discourage doing so until the current one crashes or becomes woefully insufficient.

 

[jis]

I have not read the whole article, will do so at leisure and add my comments about it, but one point in the meantime- Vivek Express is no doubt technically the longest train in India now, but somehow my bucket-list is still biased towards doing the end-to-end journey on the second longest train in India- the Himsagar Express running from Jammu in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. To me, that truly represents a cross-country travel more than Vivek Express. See the comparison of routes of the two trains here-

The most interesting part of Vivek Express's run is I think at either end of its journey. The middle is ... well ... somewhat ho hum.

On Himsagar, I am holding off until 2017 when it will presumably become Srinagar to Kanyakumari along the Kashmir Rail Link through the new Pir Panjal Tunnel and across the tallest arch bridge in the world across the Chenab. Now that would be something. Or maybe just to make a point they'd make it Baramula to Kanyakumari?

 

[user 1215]

That's sort of what I got out of the article in the Economist. I can't really believe that 4000 out of the 4250 KM are THAT boring.

 

[Texan Eagle]

I have not read the whole article, will do so at leisure and add my comments about it, but one point in the meantime- Vivek Express is no doubt technically the longest train in India now, but somehow my bucket-list is still biased towards doing the end-to-end journey on the second longest train in India- the Himsagar Express running from Jammu in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. To me, that truly represents a cross-country travel more than Vivek Express. See the comparison of routes of the two trains here-

The most interesting part of Vivek Express's run is I think at either end of its journey. The middle is ... well ... somewhat ho hum.

On Himsagar, I am holding off until 2017 when it will presumably become Srinagar to Kanyakumari along the Kashmir Rail Link through the new Pir Panjal Tunnel and across the tallest arch bridge in the world across the Chenab. Now that would be something. Or maybe just to make a point they'd make it Baramula to Kanyakumari?

Yes, if and when the controversial and complicated Katra-Qazigund section of the Kashmir Railway opens up, thereby completing the railway link from Baramula at the Line of Control with Pakistan to Jammu, it should be fun to do the whole run, although I am a bit skeptical whether Himsagar would be extended all the way to Srinagar or Baramula. IR doesn't really seem to take pride in the once-longest running train across the country, considering how they have not even thought of making it daily, it enjoys low running priority, gets a WAM-4 locomotive for most part of its run, which is these days assigned only to insignificant trains while all important trains run with WAP class locos. For all you know, maybe IR might just introduce an altogether new Baramula to Kanyakumari cross-country train if and when the Kashmir Railway opens.

 

[jis]

That's sort of what I got out of the article in the Economist. I can't really believe that 4000 out of the 4250 KM are THAT boring.

Actually I would say that about 1500 to 2000 or so km is ho hum. The rest is quite interesting.