There was a time when long distance travel on the Indian Railways was an event to be looked forward to. If British achievement in India was to be measured on only one criterion, it would be the the excellent network of railways they built. Often sacrificing shorter routes and therefore lower track laying costs, British engineers and rail planners opted for the scenic and more costly equivalents instead. It was as if they wanted to leave their footprint on the Indian landscape much after they were gone and to ensure that their mark on rural India would never be easily forgotten.
Rolling stock was built in the finest English foundries, and locomotives bore the name of Sir Roger Lumley a British general from an illustrious noble family and an Indophile. Railway cars sported brass and fine teak wood and lavatories were cleaned, burnished and sanitized as often as was needed and at least more than three or four times during a single trip, even if not called for, by the Indian complement. Anglo Indians and Goans kept on-time operations smooth and almost faultless. Farmers needed no clocks or time pieces, since they could better rely on the passing of the Cooch-Behar Mail or the Trichinopoly Express for that. Starting to work from the age of 17 or 18 as lower rung assistant drivers on coal locomotives whose duties were ceaselessly stoking the furnace in the hottest temperatures and summer ambience of the Deccan plains, they climbed the ladder to drivers, divisional chiefs, general managers and even members of the Railway Board. In those high positions they knew what they were talking about and what was needed to improve it. During its heyday, the Indian Railways was a model of comfort, efficiency and operating success for any country contemplating building of their own rail network. Looking at it today, you could hardly imagine that what exists in the present form would have degenerated so much as to make it impossible to imagine what it once was. But to people who have lived through it, the vision blurs as if from a clear sun of a crispy noon to a heavy rain and mist laden dusky evening. But one can say that of India as a whole. The Canadian rail system was built on the Indian model magnified larger than life so as to cover the enormously wider areas. Financed by Scottish bankers and laid by Chinese coolie labor, its mighty reach makes up for the network of many independent lines that colonial India laid. Every mile of track that the Chinese built had the blood of three of their men. Taken by tigers and animals while working in broad daylight, they sweated and worked to a man with little pay except the reward of making the new land their home. Its a joy to ride on the VIA Rail extending from Atlantic Canada through Quebec and Ontario through to the Prairies and to the Rockies and the Pacific. The seats are infinitely more comfortable than those on an international airline. The first class is not much better than the economy which is a compliment to the economy standard, not an insult to the first. A regular Canadian railway car has all the comfort that an Indian Maharajah Express or the Palace on Wheels and better service to boot. Its almost like British colonial India travel with all the modern technology included. Roland. Toronto.
