Shape of things to come - in Indian Railways?

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Tracks fanning out of Beijing Railway Station

A recent news item indicated that the Chinese are coming to take a look at the Indian Railways and suggest ways and means to improve it in most of its aspects. A week or two earlier a 22-member delegation headed by the Deputy Administrator of the National Railway Administration Zheng Jian held talks with the top brass of the Central Railways at Mumbai

Nose like that of an aircraft

While there are numerous other countries which have developed and modernised their respective railway systems – France and Japan to name only two – perhaps pitching on China would be the right thing to do. Thirty years ago the Chinese Railways system was no better than ours as it is today. I had had occasion to

Sleeperette  seats

see it myself in 1982. But today they have a whole network of swanky bullet trains running at 300 kms per hour. They have gone through the whole gamut of processes for lifting up standards and modernisation of the System and the work is still on. The fast paced development was aided by accumulation of huge amounts of forex reserves and an authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, in our case, too, a beginning has

Stewardesses

to be made - sooner the better. Our Railways have been milked by the politicians in our self-destructive, chaotic democracy for so long that it had actually been brought down to the edge of a precipice.

The report hoped that a MoU might be signed in this regard when the Chinese President comes to India on a visit in September next.  The photographs sent to me by a friend are also posted. One wonders whether one would be journeying on such a train in this country any time soon. Not in my lifetime anyway!

Will it be like what we see here?