VINTAGE RAILWAY TIMES

There was a time when trains had compact small  compartments

instead of the longer  vestibule coaches of today with multiple cabins and a long running corridor

. 

Railways used to have four categories of compartments -  first class, second class, third class and an inter class.  There were no air conditioned coaches

The first class compartment had  two very wide lower berths . One upper berth above one of the lower berths  and a  long rack for keeping hats above the other lower berth. In first class compartment window has three types of shutters - a glass shutter, a wooden shutter and a wire mesh shutter. The wire mesh shutter filtered the large particles of coal travelling from the steam engine

The second class had a total of six berths - two lower berths and two upper berth on the window sides and one lower berth and one upper berth on the third side. There was a bathroom on the fourth side.

The difference between third class and inter class was that in inter class there was some kind of very ordinary cushion  benches . Third class  benches were of plain hard wood.

There were no platform tickets until early fifties. Even when the platform ticket was introduced, most people would not buy them and would go inside after simply informing the ticket collector at the gate

In most bigger Railway stations the best book stall of the town used to be the A.H.Wheeler Book Stall at the railway station. In the City where I spent my childhood the A.H. Wheeler Book Stall at platform number one pf the railway station was very big and it contained so many paperback books, dozens of magazines and several newspapers.

The main platform  was  long, wide and very clean. People used to visit the railway station to simply take an evening stroll on the almost empty  platform, watch an occasional train arriving or departing and spending time at the book stall. 

Bigger railway stations had separate vegetarian and non vegetarian restaurants. The crockery bore the name of the railways, waiters used to be in smart uniforms and the food was of a good quality.

In those days the results of major all India or state examinations were published in one of the newspapers. The results of provincial education boards final examinations used to be published in newspaper special editions . I remember when I gave my high school examination, the results were declared sometime towards the end of May and the evening railway train brought the newspapers containing the results . There was a massive crowd at the station that evening, all eagerly awaiting the arrival of the train carrying the newspapers and as soon as the newspapers arrived (priced at Rupee one each) there was a mad rush to buy a copy of the bulky newspaper. 

Finally a word about the railway colonies . These vast colonies were located at important Railway centres and had all categories of railway quarters, from very small ones for the lowest of the staff and massive  Bungalows for the top officials. Railway Colony used to be very clean and very well maintained. Every Railway. colony usually had two clubs - A Junior Institute for the staff and a Senior Institute for the officers. Railway Colony had their own Electric Supply at much cheaper rate than the rest of the city.

Those were the golden days of Indian Railways.