caravanman
Engineer
Hi Folks,
As some of you will know, I live in the UK.. and since I discovered “Amtrak” about 6 years ago, I have ridden over 30,000 Amtrak miles, discovering America by rail, and chatting to it’s citizens.
This December, I was invited to a Christmas wedding in Mercara, southern India, and decided to turn the trip into a months tour of northern India, together with my girlfriend, Alison, mostly by rail.. All in all, an interesting experience!
Indian trains are almost always booked to capacity, and in the “unreserved” sections, the word “full” is not understood.
On the Bombay Railway, a commuter line that has to be seen to be believed, even the authorities refer to the rush hour with the jaunty phrase “super dense crush load” where trains are carrying 3 or 4 times their designed capacity. The overloading is fortunately eased by the fact that 10% of the passengers are hanging out of the doors at any one time, which never close…
We pre-booked most of our trains before we left the UK, using an Indian Rail Pass, this cost about £160 for 30 days, so about $260 bucks.
There are about 8 “classes” of ticket on Indian trains, I don’t think we even got close to understanding the full range.
We opted for a 2 Tier air conditioned pass, which meant that one had either a padded bench seat for two to sit on during the day, or a lower and upper berth to sleep in at night. Facing was a mirror image set up, and along the edge of the side corridor, were two more upper and lower berths or seats. The 3 Tier
option would be the same, except one more bunk would be squeezed in.. rather like many continental European night trains.
Food was mostly provided by catering staff taking your order in advance, and then collecting it from the next main station stop, although on many trains there was also a fairly regular procession of vendors passing through offering “Chai”, “Tomato Soup” , “Masala Tea” , “Panni” together with bread omlette and my staple, the “vegetable cutlet”.
Although commuter and the unreserved portions of trains can get a bit challenging, and we experienced both of those for short journies, the main long distance trains are fine, and one has a reserved seat/berth without overcrowding. At least that is the idea.. Personal space is hard to preseve in Indian society, and one frequently found adjacent travellers being visited by relatives and friends en-mass, and expecting to perch on one’s bunk for a few miles, while they ate a samosa or two and had a chin wag.. We noticed that the individual bunks also contained two persons sleeping top to toe on occasion, not sure if that was for economic reasons, a booking error or what!
We flew into Delhi, and visited Agra, Jaipur, Varanasi, Bombay, Matheran, a hill station near Bombay, Goa, and Mangalore all by train. We met up with Robin, Alison’s son in Goa.. He rented an old motorbike at the beach and set off to Coorge on that.. Brave boy! The roads were full of potholes! We travelled from Mangalore to the wedding by car, and met up with some other family members and friends there in Coorge, (also called Mercara).
After the Hindu wedding, we all went by mini bus to Mysore and finally to Bangalore, where we flew home from on 29th Dec 2009.
If any one is anticipating a trip to India, I would be happy to elaborate, otherwise I will let the pictures speak for themselves..
( Yes, the photos of the outsides of trains were often taken by me hanging out of the open doors too..! )
*Sorry, I should add that a couple of the rail pics were taken at a rail museum in Delhi, they are not current equipment..!
Some sample pics ...
Ed
As some of you will know, I live in the UK.. and since I discovered “Amtrak” about 6 years ago, I have ridden over 30,000 Amtrak miles, discovering America by rail, and chatting to it’s citizens.
This December, I was invited to a Christmas wedding in Mercara, southern India, and decided to turn the trip into a months tour of northern India, together with my girlfriend, Alison, mostly by rail.. All in all, an interesting experience!
Indian trains are almost always booked to capacity, and in the “unreserved” sections, the word “full” is not understood.
On the Bombay Railway, a commuter line that has to be seen to be believed, even the authorities refer to the rush hour with the jaunty phrase “super dense crush load” where trains are carrying 3 or 4 times their designed capacity. The overloading is fortunately eased by the fact that 10% of the passengers are hanging out of the doors at any one time, which never close…
We pre-booked most of our trains before we left the UK, using an Indian Rail Pass, this cost about £160 for 30 days, so about $260 bucks.
There are about 8 “classes” of ticket on Indian trains, I don’t think we even got close to understanding the full range.
We opted for a 2 Tier air conditioned pass, which meant that one had either a padded bench seat for two to sit on during the day, or a lower and upper berth to sleep in at night. Facing was a mirror image set up, and along the edge of the side corridor, were two more upper and lower berths or seats. The 3 Tier
option would be the same, except one more bunk would be squeezed in.. rather like many continental European night trains.
Food was mostly provided by catering staff taking your order in advance, and then collecting it from the next main station stop, although on many trains there was also a fairly regular procession of vendors passing through offering “Chai”, “Tomato Soup” , “Masala Tea” , “Panni” together with bread omlette and my staple, the “vegetable cutlet”.
Although commuter and the unreserved portions of trains can get a bit challenging, and we experienced both of those for short journies, the main long distance trains are fine, and one has a reserved seat/berth without overcrowding. At least that is the idea.. Personal space is hard to preseve in Indian society, and one frequently found adjacent travellers being visited by relatives and friends en-mass, and expecting to perch on one’s bunk for a few miles, while they ate a samosa or two and had a chin wag.. We noticed that the individual bunks also contained two persons sleeping top to toe on occasion, not sure if that was for economic reasons, a booking error or what!
We flew into Delhi, and visited Agra, Jaipur, Varanasi, Bombay, Matheran, a hill station near Bombay, Goa, and Mangalore all by train. We met up with Robin, Alison’s son in Goa.. He rented an old motorbike at the beach and set off to Coorge on that.. Brave boy! The roads were full of potholes! We travelled from Mangalore to the wedding by car, and met up with some other family members and friends there in Coorge, (also called Mercara).
After the Hindu wedding, we all went by mini bus to Mysore and finally to Bangalore, where we flew home from on 29th Dec 2009.
If any one is anticipating a trip to India, I would be happy to elaborate, otherwise I will let the pictures speak for themselves..
( Yes, the photos of the outsides of trains were often taken by me hanging out of the open doors too..! )
*Sorry, I should add that a couple of the rail pics were taken at a rail museum in Delhi, they are not current equipment..!
Some sample pics ...
Ed
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