Trains in India are long. So long in fact that it’s a shame they don’t use steam trains as a platform shrouded in steamy mist would look great for these massively long trains to slowly disappear into.
I’m used to long trains. We have them here in the UK too and it’s a groovy thing as you can fit many people on them, but there’s one subtle difference I wasn’t prepared for when I visited India a couple of years ago — you can’t just jump on any part of the train and walk down it as it’s moving to your carriage like you can here, so arriving late to the station means a frantic search for your carriage before the trains departs.
The Indian train system is one of the best in the world. It arrives on time, it’s cheap and it gets you from A to B when B is a long, long way away from A. It’s just the not being able to walk down the train bit that threw me a little, even though thinking about it now seems so obvious. Each carriage in an Indian train is like a little world of its own, cut off from its neighbour, a sort of microcosm of different classes and luggage deliveries. So, if you get on the wrong carriage when the train arrives, like I did, your only option unless you want to go all James Bondy on the roof is to run up and down the platform at the next stop, carrying all your luggage with you, hoping that you’ll get to your carriage before the train moves on again, which I didn’t…
What you should do…
Before I go into what happened to me, here is what you are supposed to do. Your ticket will say which carriage you are in and this usually is denoted by a combination of a letter and a number, e.g. Carriage 3c. To find that carriage, get to the platform early and look for signs usually situated above each platform indicating where each carriage will stop. Failing that just ask a train official as there’s usually one around. Once the train arrives and you’ve found your carriage have a quick glance at the passenger list stuck to the outside of each carriage to make sure your name is on there. It’s a simple and effective system.
and what I did…
Now, here is what I did. I was waiting somewhere around the middle of the platform when this massively long train arrives. I look at the numbers printed on the sides of each carriage and slowly realise they bear no relation whatsoever to the carriage number on my ticket. I have no idea where my carriage is or how to find it. The train is about to pull away so I just get on and spend the next 30mins or so standing in a corridor place between two carriages chatting to a couple of other guys who had presumably done the same as me, or had no seats booked at all. This was fine and I would have been happy to stay there except it was an 8 hour overnight journey and I had treated myself to a bed in first class, this being my first train journey on my own in India.
The ticket inspector comes along and kindly reminds me that I’m not in the right part of the train and that I should run towards the rear of the train at the next stop where, he says I’ll find the first class carriage. So, the train pulls in, I jump off and run as fast as I can towards the rear of this seemingly never ending train. I have a massive backpack on my back and a guitar case in one hand, leaving my other hand to grab at the air in front of me in an attempt to gain more forwards momentum as I run. Exhausted, I finally reach the rear of the train, but there’s no first class carriage here and the train is starting to pull away. Out of desperation I hurl myself towards an open doorway.
“I must get on this train”, I say to the slightly bewildered man standing just inside as I throw my guitar case on. I jump, I slip and I find myself with the top half of me on the train but my legs dangling down between the side of this moving train and the platform, my tired arms desperately trying to haul myself up.
Then, at the point where my mind has just realised the serious of the situation I am in and panic has started to set, the man in the doorway reaches down, hauls me up into the air and places me safely inside his carriage.
It turns out my savour is the guard. He kindly gives me antiseptic to clean my wounded knees and I spend the next hour or two with him and two other Indians guys who all don’t speak a word of English, and me not a word of Hindi.
I find my carriage at last
A couple of stops later, a man in a smart suit enters the guards van, as the other two men leave. He speaks English, and he offers to take me to my carriage at the next stop. As the train pulls in I again pass on my deepest gratitude to the guard and the man in the suit grabs hold of my free hand and runs with me along the platform to the first class carriage, where a couple of train officials are kindly waiting for me to make sure I get to my carriage this time.
I’m not sure if I managed to sleep much at all. I so wanted to tell someone what I’d been through but it was late so I laid down on my bunk bed and went through in my mind both how foolish and lucky I had just been.