The Romance of Indian Railways 1975

[Music] [Music] [Music] there are those who love the splendid steam train the great and disappearing iron horse and there are those who love India and there are happily those who love both during the one was made by the other [Music] to all romantic amateurs of the history that runs on Rails and that which stands change ously since the days of the moguls this is an affectionate Salaam to the past that created [Applause] [Applause] now of course development means diesel a thing of little charm and no chaff but that is progress India makes her own engines now and even exports [Music] urban india couldn't live without its railways imagine a commuter traffic into one bombay station alone of nearly one-and-a-half million a day a rush-hour trains every three minutes each with four thousand people aboard or almost aboard all packed so tight it's almost impossible to pick a pocket over 2800 million Indians who use the railways every year nearly half are commuters the suburban lines have been electrified these 40 ideas obviously had to be to handle this sort of sardine traffic how could India do without the electric train well in many places luckily it does puffing Billy is still the workhorse of the countryside end of the hills and its lover historian and defender of the faith is a dedicated English salient whose life's purpose now is the preservation of the great Indian steam train in a permanent Museum in Delhi his name is Mike Sato the first railway that I can recall ever turning me on was the matter on railway I think that's one of the most exciting little railways built most importantly very little known by anyone outside India but it stems from the early days of this century it's the only link we've met around in the outside world and it represents a technical achievement of some magnitude even when the scale is small I think a very good historical relic of the sort of technical ingenuity that was being practiced in the late 19th century railway itself is 12 miles of track which on the map only covers four miles from point to point and of course of that it rises 2,000 feet there are 281 curves and probably the sharpest curve on any working railway in the world because the radius is only 45 feet and to get around these corners they have special engines which were the brainchild of a dilettante engineer Sir Arthur Hayward and gentlemen in Derbyshire and his hobby was railways he used to build his own engines and they are the only known examples of this type of engine in existence in the world and furthermore they're all working and working very well there are four steam engines on this railway which since 1907 have been holding the trains up and lowering them down outwardly rather conventional engines but inwardly rather complicated and very novel engines which must be a full justification for the design which went into them on a land of the Staton in Derbyshire of course preferences resistance Mike Sato was once managing director of I CI in India for 15 years he lived in the country retired to England he resolutely returns price a year to the India he loves and the trains he loves perhaps see more 36,000 miles of railways but a net over India uniting this huge country as nothing else could do this was the one wholly bountiful legacy bequeathed to India by a British Raj perhaps the only one it all began in Bombay and it's Memorial and temple is Victoria Terminus [Music] Victoria Terminus was built as was the manner of the 1880s in the likeness of a shrine a technological Cathedral a great caravan shrine the most flowering Victorian Gothic Sara Sanok Italianate Oriental San tanco Sparrow to the glory of her late Imperial Majesty and that of the great steam train [Music] so the British bequeathed to India the trains and the stations and the currency of the common language and you might say a touch of the class system too though India had hardly needed that the old times of the Raj also provided the rolling stock and some of these old beauties still remain largely thanks to Max Auto who's dreamed now taking shape in Delhi is the Railway Museum where the first of the old iron elephants is going not to die but in fact to get the coiler examination done okay Chandra a what's it like it is very good that we were tested so that means really we've ended up by not minor repairs like every come spring fairy Queens enter the first of our exhibits there hundreds more to come when the museum's finished it should be the most comprehensive perhaps one of the largest in the world [Music] 400 years ago the great and wise mughal emperor akbar built the city of fat per ccleaner Agra abandoned within 50 years because as well ran dry now it is a thing of dead beauty a monument once the India's industrial heritage preserved as well as her monuments after all the Taj Mahal doesn't have much of a break up value as scrap but unfortunately a locomotive does so unless we preserve them today they'll just disappear my wife Peggy of course had rather different interests from my [Music] she was very much involved with Indian arts Indian music charitable work and on many occasions we've been traveling together for long periods perhaps and Indian trains because journeys along travel on railways over long distances becomes almost a way of life the journey may take two three four five days II and so you take your cooking equipment to take a sleeping equipment you may sleep in a railway coach and receivin station platform life goes on and in the course of it who ultimately move across the subcontinent [Music] the evening brings that imperative of the night the ubiquitous bed roll [Music] the bedro turning up each evening no one who knows India will ever forget it nor ever remember without must Alger maybe for the great railway names frontier mail the Deccan Queen the Brindavan the Rajdhani Express and even perhaps for the empire on which the Sun did finally set [Applause] one of the interesting things about the research work and the investigation work that I've been doing since Museum has been the need to go off into all sorts of very remote corners of India the Rajasthan desert for example held out the prospect of finding a special class of five locomotives and reason to believe that some of the engines that we're there have now disappeared over laid aside so I wanted to go and investigate for myself what in fact was still working what a place is India for the engineer not only huge but hostile rivers to be bridged jungles have cut mountains to be tunneled nothing is easy in India but it gets done there are million 3/4 Indians working on the railways by far the biggest employer in the land the gang man on the track paused to give a quick Namastey to the official trolley what sort of token system beers here a block system this section ice closes on needles ball TOEFL instrument that's a small token eroded I'll show you at the next station and that instrument is locking block to see if it cannot it cannot be operated by simultaneous coordination of the two states of marginalizing and not more than one token we can be taken out from one end the signal system works with some elaboration the points man takes the token from the trolley he then searched in the signal he takes the key [Applause] approaches the leaver and the points then change the points man runs over to the points and locks it he pulls the Sydney leaver and the signal goes down this wonderful rigmarole not only fulfills the Indian love of complication it's also safer these are the hangman typical rajasthan yes anybody if you looked out of window mr. Bhushan ease men you see they are belonging to a particular Howard tribe yes which used to be in olden days criminals after the railways I come into being we have reformed him I went out into the come the guards section on a single meter gauge lie and for working the heavy mineral trains special engines were built in 1929 and they been working there ever since one engine on the front one engine on the back and since 1929 these five engines have been children this massive task of moving the tonnage of Freight up this incline and is still in fighting fair [Music] see you relaying this with some 75-pound yes they have relayed this track only about three years ago yeah I'll say it so come here look a railing marks on it these are 1887 these are older than anything I've got in museum so far in yes they are I like some of it what are you doing with this is being committed this great I'm pleased the old rail store import our people disposal orders are in France all right let's just see what length is our four six eight nine thirty photos yes you're absolutely right he's our 34:12 kill right will it be time for me finally I get the order so that I have the necessary authority to do that the Indian Railways are an enormous absorbent of labor the one commodity perhaps which the nation is never sure there are hierarchical India itself there are those who are saluted and there are those who salute those 36,000 miles of railway track need endless maintenance and almost endless men which is not indeed a bad thing on the whole but this immense system of communications needs old manner of men all manner of skills and crafts and backroom techniques the days are done and the lines were shared among many companies the great Indian Peninsula the Madras Company the Bombay Baroda and central India the Jamnagar worker and dozens more Indian Railways belong to India now an awful lot of it still depends on that good old fossil fuel coal and a good thing too since India has quite a lot of coal and not much oil and coal is compared to be cheap and oil is ferociously there in comes comes Hiram a good deal of this lusco gets itself nicked as indeed do most movable and steel assets of the railways sometime another therefore someone has to keep pretty close eye on the scene and before you triumphantly interrupt let us agree that this scene was set up it was enacted as shall we say a training exercise for the railway police the great advances the steam engine is very cheap to build it's very reliable and it can be maintained by more or less anyone the steam locomotive is a labor-intensive machine compared with the diesel or the electric but on the other hand labor is available in India and is very well-versed in maintaining the steam edge they have of course to go to training schools to learn the complications of the modern systems any indication on the signal post now sometimes this signal becomes defective that time where the driver or the motor man is authorized by the stationmaster to pass that signal by a written authority which on our Western Railway is prescribed on Form t88 B second signal under the system of working is semi-automatic stop signal power in Calcutta is the biggest passenger station in all India just a glance at our shows how much of India's economy relies on the rail not just the passengers but all the other businesses who depend on the station to taxi the coach the rickshaws and the porters 1800 of them in Hara alone unpaid and living on backseat [Music] but still it's the ironmongery of this great business that absorbs mike's arter the locomotives there hisses and snorts to be recorded here and recollected in tranquility guilt by Baldwin's a register a second left finds about number 78 who died poor was once a princely state of great prestige and renown the lake palace is now a tourist hotel illegally great prestige belong perhaps the loveliest in India [Music] they're in the middle of the patroller make in an unspoiled term with the dhobi ghats coming down to the water's edge you would think you had everything [Music] but Mike Sutter dreams only of trains Ram Kumar the curator of the museum had only recently been appointed and there's much to show him you can't learn everything by just looking into dusty files I took him around with me on several visits one of the more exciting ones I think from his point of view was the monorail at Patiala but there's the engine shed and the track coming in here another track ever there here's the remains of one of the passenger coaches and here is Colonel bells saloon with some of the original paint work and lighting on it so we can get all that and then up the front here we've got the engines let's go and have a look at those from start this one is very good but unfortunately the boilers missing off this one and I can't find it anywhere at all then splendid condition you know because these things haven't worked for seven years we've even got the original lettering on the side of these things what did this be if empty that's the Patiala State monorail train wait what did the history smiley but it was built in nineteen hundred and seven for the Maharajah by Colonel bones and it ran for 20 years came into this engine shed never run again all that's happened is the rails have been buried by windblown dust trees have grown up around the track ever they're between two wagons but apart from that the climate is so good you see that everything has been preserved very well indeed you see the principle of the this monorail was for temporary light railways for building factories moving materials about on construction sites and never never in one place for more than about one month and it didn't really matter what the condition of the ground was like if she'd only had the white rail under the centre and the weight was about ninety percent on the rail ten percent on this wheel which ran on the road to steady it but after 20 years going over the same track it got me to a fair amount of difficulty because of the grooves worn by the and wheel here I did any other systems in other countries not this system this system is only used in India the engines these engines themselves came from Berlin there understand a couple the main thing you see now is having found it we've got an opportunity of saving it I don't mind how long it takes to get it put back into working order the important thing is that anything as historic as this just should not be cut up to sell to scrap but you know if we could get this thing to Danny there lay a bit of this track because there obviously is still plenty of track in the yard here if we could do that this would be an absolute winner really would [Applause] Indians are great travelers within their own land some of them you think they almost lived on trains the vast bulk of travel hard third-class for hours and hours and Dave Dave particularly on patience patience is the thing and no one has more of that in the end we shall arrive sometimes in some wealth we always do an Indian railway station is more than a stopping place it is in fact a way of life Indian people don't go to railway stations they inhabit them sometimes literally sure the station is a social center a nexus of life of bazaar an island of activity in the midst of 800,000 villages where you can come buy almost anything you want from Lawrence to a Bengal right yeah it may be a couple of days or three before your train is due so what can be the hurry in the meantime on the station plays waits lives wait some more while time slips by washes eats sleeps reflects on eternity above all waits [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] see [Applause] Hey [Music] [Music] yeah the [Music] [Laughter] [Music] even on the track there are pickings to be made even cinders are not without value in a poor country an Indian Railway values and economics are not to be judged by Western standards of course there are hundreds and thousands of ticket less travelers everyday the railways tolerate them what else could they do [Music] Banaras on the Ganges is the holiest place on the holiest River for all pious Hindus at sunrise is it a place for the cleansing of the soul [Music] yet this peculiarly sacred place is one of the major centers of the Indian Railways most of the pilgrims come to Banaras by train after all from all over India to this especially hallowed Riverside where one washes away one spiritual impurities in the Ganges though perhaps acquiring a few physical ones and process [Music] [Music] and the tireless Mike Sato is still at work still busy on the enshrining of the great Indian Railway system on film tape memory and coaxing the powers be not to forget what the railways we're all about [Music] all over India one finds amongst the great family of rare women the generosity and kindness which has been so much a traditional Braille woman you find drivers who will invite you onto their foot plate and quite frequently extend that hospitality beyond that with the foot plate and even into their own home no need a saucer my third one is I'm Roxanne and myself thank you sir please no thank you very much thank you [Music] [Music] bananana Muruga is a minister mukarat arabic Shalom come on the show comin atcha combination my beautiful day and the kizomba through Monday 5 again we also respect to our guests this is that you have this is Shana make wheels so here oh yes you should start all these seats very kind of you to ask me to this is festival because I've never been inside family house during a department festival before and this is really the Hindu now yes yeah yeah and everything nice tart today yes Diwali is in fact the autumn festival of lights when every Hindu home is aglow in honor of the coronation of Rama the god king or the King God who could possibly know after 2,000 years his dedicated elektra goddess of prosperity so every little lamp and light is auspicious for both this world and the next now we really take to the hills this is what the true railway buffs all wait for the famous Darjeeling Himalayan railway this is the spectacular little toy train with its two-foot gauge scrambling up the mountains on gradients sometimes one in 20 chasing its own tail and extraordinary loops and curlicues a single line track with all the down trains going one after the other and then all the up trains going up [Music] [Music] sometimes the track is too steep even to go in loops so the train has to reverse itself onto a new level for the one five minutes behind busily pursues it [Music] it takes 8 hours to do it's 54 miles and it isn't always quicker by rail not when you can hop off of one side of the loop and hop back again on the other you learn these techniques only through experience [Music] at the little hill town of cross the armor the little hill tray runs smack down the middle of Main Street this is road rail integration of the closest guide for a while the Train is a trap [Music] for all little hill towns a train is an event on occasion it is the Train that links these remote places with everywhere else this is quite particular for Mike Sartell a special little tray as befits a specialist an observation coach for the number one connoisseur of all Indian trains in the Himalayan toy train in particular how many of the big house engine is still working more 25 of them horrified by our command only we have 16 every so often of course some disaster strikes this river the monsoon washes away large sections of the track and every time this happens those of us who love it feel this must be a final death day which after all is losing money to the extent of 75% of its operating costs but there are strong arguments in keeping it alive first of all if it were closed 2,000 2,500 people would be without a job in an area which certainly can't provide alternative employment but I even on the emotional side or the more emotional side as seen by the railway enthusiast this is surely one of the most famous one of the best known of these hill game plans I don't think anybody could fail to be moved by the excitement of the toy railway as it's called up to Darjeeling it's always known in the most friendly fashion as a toy railway and for 54 miles this exciting little railway plugs uphill over the top of Goom right on top of the world because when you come through Goom and into the famous double loop of a tarsier you get your first glimpse of the snow and kanchenjungha looming behind darjeeling which at that point lies about 600 feet below now the downward Kersting ride towards Darjeeling Darjeeling one of the famous hill stations of the high northeast squashed in that 7,000 feet between Sikkim and Nepal almost within the shadow of Everest a great resort for the sobs in their heyday and rich tea planters from the Sam now Darjeeling is a very cosmopolitan place indeed with its Nepalese Leptis Sikh amis Bengal is all the high ground people at the edge of India and now of course especially the refugee colonists from Tibet the society that insists on retaining its curious identity it is possible to find parts of India that aren't within the bullock-carts ride of a railway line but it isn't either Chand arrived on technically India is so big so various 15 recognised languages an uncountable dialects which could well have been a great balkanized confusion had the railways not in their long lumbering way united it wherever you are in India when the train comes everything stops for the Train and when the train is gone India takes over again [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it isn't very beautiful really but it is beautiful and because it's part of life it isn't immortal this will go one day unless max Otto and his friends succeed and insist that it shall not go or at least not go unrecorded man Sam

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Keywords: indian railways, documentary, steam trains, indian steam railway society, indian railways video, indian railways documentary

Id: kIeUugjvoC8

Length: 49min 42sec (2982 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020