2,779 Miles in 76 Hours
Riding the Indian Rails from Mumbai to Delhi to Chennai to Mysore to Bangalore
30 years ago, our first adventure together took us on sleeper trains in a grand circle from Paris to Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and back. A few years later, we reconstructed the Northern Route of the Orient Express, boarding sleepers from Bruxelles to Cologne, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, and Istanbul. And then, we overnighted from London to Edinburgh on the famed Flying Scotsman. All of which served as some kind of training—a preamble of sorts—to the Ultimate Railroad Experience, traversing India.
There are other legendary journeys—the Trans-Siberian Express, La Trochita (Patagonian Express), and the California Zephyr come to mind—but no country’s life story (or legend) is more tied up in its network of rails and rolling stock than India’s.
In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution was a railroad-driven event. The obscure notion of laying down iron rails and wooden ties across long distances and then pulling enormous cars along them with steam engines was a British invention that made the tiny island the industrial powerhouse of the world. The British Empire might have started out with buccaneers trading tea, opium, rum, gold, spices, and slaves, but it was the railways—not just the running of them, but the building, engineering, financing, and insuring—that spread British influence and culture all over the globe.
As the jewel in the Imperial Crown, India was predestined to play an outsized part in the revolution. The vast resources of the subcontinent needed to be moved to ports like Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta for transshipment, and it was the railroads that accomplished that feat.
With freight, eventually came passengers. Much to the surprise of the titans of Victorian industry, the hitherto sedentary Indians flocked onto the trains by the millions. The image many westerners still have—of the interminable Indian train creaking along a cliffside with young men hanging off the windows and entire families packed onto the roofs in clouds of soot and smoke—was born.
It was on our fourth trip to the subcontinent that we decided we were ready to ride the long distance rails. We’d adjusted to Indian notions of space and time, and had grown comfortable in the crowded tumult of Mumbai. We’d traveled short stretches by rickety bus and chugging ferry and long distances in the mountains of Kerala with a car and driver.
We were still intimidated by those cinematic images of packed platforms and the pandemonium of trains taking off with passengers still frantically boarding. And of course there were all those warnings about muggers, petty thieves, and pickpockets. But in Mumbai, we did a dry run the day before departure and decided we were ready for anything.
DURONTO EXPRESS - BOM-NLDS - 17 hours - 912 mi - cost $163.01.
But of course, our first train, from Mumbai-Churchgate to New Delhi was 8 hours late. And it didn’t help that most of the station signs and advisories were written in the (for us) indecipherable Hindi script. Or that everyone we questioned spoke virtually no English. But there we stood, on a densely crowded platform in the semi-darkness at 10:43PM, when the Duronto Express finally rolled in.
We rushed on board with the crowds and immediately found ourselves in the right car, but the wrong compartment. Nevertheless, we refused to move, until someone in a uniform ordered us out. An entire family sat displaced, with their elderly Amah growing steadily more irritated, until the car porter showed us to our cabin, and the conductor confirmed it.
Part of the issue was that we modern westerners were actually behind the times. The entire transaction was paperless. If we couldn’t read a simple email and figure out which of its contents mattered, that was our problem. But we did finally settle in and, by aping the actions of others, assembled our beds, drank a cup of sickly-sweet garam chai, and fell into a rolling, rhythmic slumber.
GRAND TRUNK EXPRESS - NLDS-MAS - 36 hours - 1366 mi - cost $142.31.
Our second leg, from Delhi in the north to Chennai (Madras) in the extreme south, was much more ambitious, but here we finally took advantage of that classic Indian friendliness to complete our lesson plan. The first night, our cabin mate was an Infosys manager on his way to visit his grandfather’s farm. The second night, we talked to an Army Captain leaving his family to report for duty. Both had briefly studied in America and spoke excellent English, although their soft-spoken Indian voices had to compete with the rails beneath us. Both were mines of information about India and our journey, and we were sorry to see them get off.
One vital tidbit: On the phone app RailResto, we could order from restaurants along the route ahead and have our meals delivered right to our seat when we arrived in the station. We weren’t going to starve on the food the train and local hawkers sold (hopefully!), but a little variety didn’t hurt.
Another vital tidbit: We always needed enough cash in small denominations to handle food, tea, incidentals, taxis at the station, etc. No one had change for the big bills we’d withdrawn from the ATM.
And lest we forget: Bring your own toilet paper!
One of the fascinating things about train travel is the visual angle it gives you on any society. All over the world, governments pay careful attention to the view from their roads and spend exorbitantly to manage the vehicular experience. But no one seems to much care what you see from a train. That’s why you can cross Romania without spotting a Romani, but arrive by train, and you pass through a welter of their encampments. Spend an entire day on an Indian train, and back yards and garbage dumps evolve in a continuous cycle into and out of gorgeous farmland and countryside.
One thing a train shares with sea travel—more than air or even car transportation—is a sense of relaxed perpetual motion, from the sway of the long, mechanical snake to the constant clink and clang of the metal wheels passing from rail to rail. After a while, you hardly notice the gentle massage of your eardrums, back, and limbs—until it stops, and you emerge, quite invigorated.
SHATABDI EXPRESS - MAS-MYS - 7 hours - 301 mi - cost $58.63.
RAJYA RANI EXPRESS - MYS-KSR - 2 hours - 200 mi - cost $14.44.
By the time we got to these two shorter legs, from Chennai to Mysore and from Mysore to Bangalore, we were old pros. We knew how to navigate the stations and platforms to find our trains, cars, and seats. Apps were downloaded and primed, water and rupees for snacks and chai were in their assigned pockets. We knew which strangers to avoid and which to ask for help. After all, it was just a train, wasn’t it? And at $378.38 total cost for the entire trip, we had more than enough left over to splurge on one memorable hotel after another.
A Few Random Logistics:
Sometimes, what looks like chaos is really just complication. Indians as a rule are far more comfortable with complication than westerners. So it doesn’t hurt to start out assuming that there exists a system; that once you learn the intricacies of that system, your ignorance will melt away; that in the meantime, you can and should use any legitimate aids you can find.
So when reserving a seat on an Indian railway, the IRCTC website works, but to the neophyte, it looks fiendishly complicated. The service 12Go Asia (based in Singapore) makes things relatively simple, so use its excellent services and pay a small fee.
And book as early as possible—with more than 8 billion passengers boarding every year, there’s always someone booking your route ahead of you.
It still helps to know a few things ahead of time, specifically train names and seat classes. By far the most useful site for us was the India Page from The Man in Seat 61.
Not all trains are created equal. On long distances, the mail trains—the Duronto Express and Grand Trunk Express—might depart late, but they are almost never cancelled. Along with the Rajdhani Express, they also feature the best services. On short hauls, look for the Shatabdi Express.
Choosing a seat means selecting from up to 11 classes available:
AC first class (AC1/1A), AC 2-tier (AC2/2A), AC 3-tier (AC3/3A), AC 3-tier economy (3E), Executive Anubhuti chair car (EA), Executive Chair car (EC), Chair Car(CC), Sleeper class (SL), 1st class (F/FC), 2nd class reserved (2S), and 2nd class unreserved (GN). In practice, we stick to AC first class (AC1/1A) on long hauls and Executive Chair (EC) on short.
We never wait-list (WL) or reserve against cancellation (RAC) (that’s just asking for trouble) and never buy tickets at the station (ditto).
However you receive your tickets, they include one vital piece of information, your PNR (Personal Name Record). You can check that number any time on the IRCTC site to make sure you have a confirmed ticket (CNF) and a departure time and then use it to locate your seat.
At boarding, the conductor will expect you to show him your PNR on your phone or a print-out.
As they say in America, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Since its post-independence inception, Bollywood has carried on a love affair with the railroads and train travel. There are dozens of movies set on or around the rails, many of them very watchable (with subtitles) for western audiences. We’ve included one of our favorites here, Chennai Express, along with an Anglo arthouse movie inspired by the genre, The Darjeeling Limited.
That was refreshing! Almost like taking a mini vacation!