My Train Journeys in 50's and 60's

      My childhood was spent in Bareilly in North, far away from Shimoga, in Karnataka  and Parvatipuram in Andhra where my grandparents lived. So travelling southwards during our school vacations in summer was an annual ritual which we keenly looked forward to.

Travel was invariably by Indian Railways. Bus or air travel was ruled out due to the distances and the cost factor. Of course, in my case we could avail of free travel by Indian Railways since my father was a medical officer in the Railways.

 It used to be rather a long journey.

Our schedule of typical journey by Rail from Bareilly (UP) to Shimoga (then Mysore State) used to be like this:-

Day 1- Start from Bareilly in the night.

Day 2 Reach Delhi the next morning.

          Take train to Chennai (then Madras) in the evening called Grand Trunk Express.

Day 3- Spent in the train. Meals usually from Railway Catering

Day 4 -  Reach Madras in the Evening. Take Bangalore Mail in the night.

Day 5-  Reach Bangalore in the Morning. Go to my aunt's place in Gandhi Bazaar. Take train from Bangalore to TaLaguppa (via Shimoga) in the night.

Day 6 get down at Shimoga.

Journey to Parvatipuram (My paternal Grandparents) used to be slightly shorter.

Route was: Bareilly-Howrah(Calcutta)-Waltair(Visakhapatnam)-Parvatipuram. 

 Our luggage typically consisted of steel trunks, leather suitcases,Hold-all (a large cylindrical bundle with handles and a shoulder strap, used for carrying wherewithal for sleeping, clothes, and other personal belongings.),Cane basket for eatables, Water container of Brass or Earthenware(in Summer),Tiffin carrier and so on.

There were stations designated as ‘meals stations’ where the train would halt for about 20 to 30 minutes.People would rush to the dining hall of Railway Refreshment Room where 30 to 40 thalis would be kept spread out on the tables for the passengers to have their fill. Very neat arrangement. But there was one problem though. For those depending on this option, the lunch time could stretch from noon to tea time to sometimes dinner time depending how late the train was! Long distance trains were notorious for being late by long hours leading to this well-known joke.

A passenger came to board train which was notorious for being usually very late . He was pleasantly surprised to find it on time on that day .Before he could congratulate the driver, another passenger clarified that it was actually previous day’s train late by 24 hours!

There were no wheels on our luggage so invariably we would have to depend on a coolie. What an amazing breed of guys, who appeared like super heroes to us, carrying five to six pieces of luggage, single handed and going up and down over the staircases of the railway bridge-seemingly without much effort. While a single coolie in Delhi railway station could easily carry our stuff, in Madras at least two were needed.We carried an implicit belief that wheat eating folks were sturdier than the rice eating ones.

Here are some more details about our holdall. It was aptly named as hold-all as could contain (no-holds-barred) ---

- Quilt

-pillows (with or without cash sewn in them-there were no credit cards then)

-blankets

-Mats

-towels

-Chappals, sandals, shoes

-Toilet kits

-Umbrellas

-Virtually anything and everything which, on the eleventh hour, could not be accommodated in our trunks/suitcases.

A proper Holdall was held by a pair of leather straps. But, in the absence of it, any strong rope served the purpose. As a last piece of luggage, it had to hold anything and everything which was left unpacked. So, invariably it used to become very bulky. Tying a belt/rope used to be a ritual with all of us pulling it tight to the last hole in the strap (we had to punch additional holes many a times).

After a few rounds of tying and untying we could have qualified for a tug of war competition. If it were tied a little loosely, it would give way on the platforms and staircases of the railway stations and it used to be a herculean task to put things back and tie it again. Nevertheless, it was a very useful piece of luggage to sit on it either on the platform or on the floor of the train compartment if we did not get place to sit. Also for sleeping on the floor of the compartment, if we could not get reserved berth.

A typical hold-all looked like this.....

When one travels in summer, plenty of water is a necessity. There were no packaged water in those days. Had anyone suggested packaging and selling water as a business, he would have been considered downright insane. But the platforms had taps for drinking water (sadly, sometimes dry). For the whole length of platform, there used to be 4 to 5 taps to cater to 1000 to 1500 passengers. Naturally, there used to be a mad rush to the taps at every station and one had to be quick, agile and manipulative to get the water filled in the container. While filling up, we felt tensed up lest we miss the train. It was always a heroic effort to collect water and then board, many times, a moving train.

Once, while travelling alone, I felt very thirsty in the night and I did not have water to drink. The train was on a dimly lit station. I got down from the train and found a tap a little away and quenched my thirst. But, without any warning, the train started moving. The idea of getting left in the midnight on an unknown, dark wayside station was scary. Somehow, I could get in and felt immensely relieved. But I used to have a recurring nightmare of being left high and dry on a god forsaken platform.

In spite of being warned from our elders, we would peep out of the windows to get a view of our engine belching out smoke (only steam locomotives were in use then). Invariably, coal dust used to get into our eyes causing distress with our elders trying dab our eyes with a piece of moistened cloth warmed up by blowing into it. Over the bends, it was pure thrill to see the front or back portion of the moving train.

Tunnels were another great experience. The train lights used to be off during the day. But whenever the lights came on, it was an indication that the train is approaching a tunnel. Nagpur-Itarsi and Mumbai-Pune were the routes which gave us this chance. Longer the tunnel, better. I am sure, if someone had cared to measure, our heart rates would be double during the time the train was inside the tunnel.

In many such routes, due to up gradient, a single locomotive was unable to pull long trains like ours. Therefore, an additional engine was attached in the back (well, sometimes in the front also) to give it an additional push. This was another source of excitement for us. If we could peep through the window and see both the engines, our day was made.

One morbid fear which I used to nurse was that while travelling up the slope (we could feel the train labouring to ascend), if the link joining our bogie to the next one snaps, what would be our fate?

There were some railway stations like Kazipet, Waltair where the trains would change direction and start moving in opposite direction. When this happened for the first time, I was intrigued and looked at my father apprehensively. He smiled and said,” We are going back to Bareilly.” I was virtually in tears. Then he explained the system patiently and I felt relieved. From then on, it used to be my turn to torment my siblings when it happened for the first time for them.

We got impatient whenever the train remained at rest at any of the intermediate stations for too long. We pestered our elders to know when the train would start.  Elders found an ingenious way to deal with it. They would ask us to keep pushing the sides of the window and told us that if we push hard enough, the train would start moving. So, we would get engaged in this circus, giving a respite to our elders. Once the train moved, we would look at our elders triumphantly and they would give us an indulgent smile. This would go on.

An item in the Railway compartment which fascinated me to no end was---ALARM CHAIN- painted in red and Marked

“TO STOP TRAIN PULL CHAIN”.

 Below, there used to be a warning

“PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE RS.50

 (this amount gradually went up to Rs.250).

I would be itching to try my hand at pulling it down.

Once when I got to sleep on the upper birth, this alarm chain was tantalisingly within my reach. I could not help touching it and giving it a mild pull, with my heart beating fast, expecting an alarm or even a shrill siren to ring any moment. When I confided this ‘crime’ to my elder ‘knowledgeable’ friend, he clarified,” No man, it takes hell of a strong pull to make it work.” I felt relieved.

Because of long duration of journey, we had to invent some games to keep us engaged. The rhythmic sound of wheels on tracks gave us an idea. We used to think of some popular film song with similar beats and ask others to guess it. Hours would pass in this pastime. We would create new tunes too.

Well, speaking of keeping us engaged, how can I not talk of magazines and books. Whenever we got bored of our reading materials, we used make a beeline to the bookstalls on the platforms. I remember that while A.H.Wheeler and Co. monopolised Bookstalls in northern India, Higginbothams held forte in south. We were Hindi reading kids so would go for Chandamama (of course), Paraag, Balak, Nandan, chunnoo-munnoo and so on. Amar Chitra Katha was not in existence then.

Express trains did not stop at many intermediate stations. It zoomed through them with such a speed that we were unable to read the names written on the name boards. So, this was also a challenge as to who amongst us is capable of reading these names. We also observed how the names of the stations in local language used to change when the train entered different states-Maharashtra, Andhra, West Bengal, Orissa, Tamilnadu , Karnataka and so on.

Looking for different rivers was another favourite pastime. Very wide rivers with long bridges fascinated us to no end. It was a nice lesson in geography to observe various rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Godavari, Krishna, Mahanadi, Cauvery and so on. We used to keep coins ready to drop into these rivers with a belief that it would bring luck to us. Sometimes when the coin thrown by me would hit the bridge structure (would know by the sound it made), I felt disappointed thinking that coins may not have reached the river after all, denying me good luck.

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 Sketches courtesy -- Anil Jagalur.