India train travel baptism....

         Now my real journey in India commences.

Few seats--use the floor....

My train (#12480 to be exact), from Mumbai’s creaky  Bandra Terminus  was scheduled for a 13.15 departure. The train, powered from overhead electric wires, rolled into Bandra exactly one hour earlier to discharge its arriving passengers and permit grooming operations for the out bound crowd.. Comfortably ensconced on soft bales of clothing stacked for collection in piles on the platform, I watched with interest, the comings and goings -- all the teary goodbyes from Indian families on the move.

          The task to locate the carriage (or ‘rake’) as they are called in India, I can see is going to be non-ending until I understand the principles they use. My carriage & seat location, per the computerised ticket control was HA1 and people kept telling me that HA1(sounds like an infectious disease!) would roll in exactly opposite a predetermined position on the platform—problem was no-one could exactly explain where precisely the predetermined position was. Solution achieved this time, when a porter wallah eventually guided me to the correct platform location. Sure enough, HA1was right there where it should be, complete with a

Bandra--Mumbai's second main station

computerised passenger list pasted to the entrance door way informing all of my name, age, gender, passport number etc. Finding ones seat may seem a trifling issue, but Indian trains are very long, very crowded and do not have connecting passageways between carriages for the lower classes and the posh types who travel in air-con first and second. To board the train in the wrong position, could mean that one is stuck on wooden seats in the wrong class, even standing, for many hours.

                     Rail station platforms in India are well supplied with booths selling every type of food for the journey and throughout the 9 hours to my destination in Ahmedabad, we had a constant stream of wallahs passing down the train offering everything from hot tea, sandwiches, cookies, nuts, to ice creams. Each arrival of a fresh offering accompanied with a singy-song wallah repetition of the item offered.

              My train arrived in Ahmenabad exactly on time at 21.15 and after a spirited negotiation of the auto rickshaw fare, arrived at my Hotel Accolade 8 kms away across the large river that segments the city.