India by rail - Part 1
You only have to see the BBC’s excellent programme “Monsoon Railway” to realise something of the intricacy, human background, impressiveness and efficiency of India’s railways. Monsoon Railway tells the stories of some of the ordinary people who travel and work on these railways, that for the last 150 years have driven social and economic development in the country, providing an essential service to the billion-strong population who depend on it.
If you really want to see something of the true India, the railways are a fantastic way to get around the country, providing an insight into aspects of Indian life that you will not get from planes and tourbuses. With 63,000 kilometres of rail routes and 6,800 stations, the railway network in India is the third biggest in the world after Russia and China, and certainly the biggest in the world in terms of passenger kilometres. Indian Railways are also the world’s biggest employer, with over 1.5 million staff. In Britain, half a century or more ago, they used to say that if you got a job on the railways, you had a job for life, and this probably remains true today in India.
The Indian railways are a safe, inexpensive and friendly way to get about. In fact many inveterate travellers to India believe that no visit to this vast and diverse country is complete without the experience of travelling on the trains, negotiating the bustling urban Indian railway stations, and seeing the small country stations, where the hawkers have baskets of guavas, bananas and and other good things to sell.
In my next post we will take a look at Indian railways in more detail.