Video: Five trains stuck in bumper-to-bumper 'traffic'

[Texan Eagle]

Interesting video from Indian Railways. Not often one gets to see a scene like this- five long distance trains stuck standing on the same track behind each other at a distance of mere few meters, akin to cars in bumper-to-bumper heavy traffic on highways.

This happened due to some repairs work leading to closure of mainline for some time, causing so much backlog that trains had to be bunched very close to each other with multiple trains occupying one signal block. Video here-

 

[GG-1]

Interesting, I counted the cars on the last 3 trains, 17, 17, 16 That was a lot of stuck people.

Eric

 

[Texan Eagle]

Interesting, I counted the cars on the last 3 trains, 17, 17, 16 That was a lot of stuck people.

Eric

First train had 22 cars, second one was a short intercity type train so it had only 11 cars. So that's a total of over 80 cars worth of passengers stuck there.

You can see many passengers just got off the train and started walking towards the next station.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Why do Indian trains come in three liveries? I thought they only had the two-tone blue.

 

[Texan Eagle]

Why do Indian trains come in three liveries? I thought they only had the two-tone blue.

Indian trains actually come in a lot of different liveries, not just three.

The two-tone blue is the standard nationwide livery.

The blue-white with red stripe seen on two trains in this video is called the Central Railway Day Train livery. It is used on corridor-type intercity trains with sitting only accommodation (no sleepers) belonging to the Central Railway zone of Indian Railways

The third livery seen in the video- the yellow-green mashup that looks like camouflage is the latest addition called the Duronto livery. It is applied only to special category of trains called Duronto Express which all carry only origin to destination passengers. They do not have any commercial halts along the way and the only ticket you can get if from first station to last station.

There are five more prominent liveries for special category of trains-

1) Rajdhani Express livery- there are two versions of this. The older one looked like this and the current one looks like this. This livery is used for Rajdhani Express category of trains which are Indian Railway's premier overnight services with sleeper accommodation only, and food is included in ticket fare.

2) Shatabdi Express livery- there are two versions of this too. The older one looked like this and the current one looks like this. There is also a third variation of it coming up these days, looking like this. These are premier fully air-conditioned daytime corridor trains, food included in ticket fare.

3) Garib Rath livery- looks like this. These are the low-cost overnight trains offering a denser sleeper configuration at lower fares than regular sleeper fares.

4) Janshatabdi livery- looks like this. These are daytime corridor trains with all reserved cars, no walk-up with unreserved tickets allowed.

5) AC Double Decker livery- looks like this. Used only on newly introduced bi-level fully air conditioned corridor trains with reserved seating only.

Hope this helps.

 

[the_traveler]

And I thought that I-95 traffic was bad!

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

That Garib Rath has an interesting shape and it's also air-conditioned. I would probably choose that train if I ever had to travel within India.

 

[Texan Eagle]

That Garib Rath has an interesting shape and it's also air-conditioned. I would probably choose that train if I ever had to travel within India.

I didn't understand what you mean by interesting shape? The cars have the same shell as other IR cars. You'd probably not choose that train if I told you it has the most uncomfortable interiors among any Indian trains, since it is meant to serve as a sort of "low cost carrier". It is air-conditioned but it has only one class and that is open bunk type sleepers stacked three high with minimum possible legroom. The other air-conditioned trains- Rajdhani and Duronto class are much more comfortable and have bigger panoramic windows too.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

That Garib Rath has an interesting shape and it's also air-conditioned. I would probably choose that train if I ever had to travel within India.

I didn't understand what you mean by interesting shape? The cars have the same shell as other IR cars. You'd probably not choose that train if I told you it has the most uncomfortable interiors among any Indian trains, since it is meant to serve as a sort of "low cost carrier". It is air-conditioned but it has only one class and that is open bunk type sleepers stacked three high with minimum possible legroom. The other air-conditioned trains- Rajdhani and Duronto class are much more comfortable and have bigger panoramic windows too.

You mean like this: http://rcf.indianrailways.gov.in/uploads/directcontent/1294139321734-IMG_6149.JPG?

Are those even the only types of trains in India? I thought there were loads of different confusing services, at least I couldn't get them straight.

 

[Texan Eagle]

You mean like this: http://rcf.indianrai...34-IMG_6149.JPG?

Are those even the only types of trains in India? I thought there were loads of different confusing services, at least I couldn't get them straight.

Yes that's the correct interior for Garib Rath class of trains.

Yes, these are certainly not the only types of trains in India. Indian Railways offers over a dozen different classes of service on several different category of trains. Without going into too much details, classes of service are-

Sleeper

AC First Class

AC 2 Tier

AC 3 Tier

AC 3 Tier Economy - Garib Rath configuration

Non-AC First Class

Non-AC 3 Tier

Seating

Executive AC Chair Car

AC Chair Car

AC Chair Car Economy - Yuva configuration

AC Double Decker Chair Car

Non AC Reserved seating

Non AC Unreserved seating

(AC = air-conditioned cars. Non-AC = openable window cars with fans inside)

If curious, you can Google each of these terms to see photos of that class.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

This is much too confusing for the Swad that's used to single-class Greyhound and triple-class Amtrak LDTs. I'm gonna have to give up on researching this topic unless I have to go to India.